Dominique Strauss-Kahn did not act alone. Throughout France, hands are as dirty as those of a chambermaid tasked with scrubbing a $3,000 Sofitel suite.
The upstairs-downstairs saga of the Big Shot who allegedly sexually brutalized the maid did not hatch out of the ether. It is as if the majority of the citizens of France — locked into 1950s-style notions of sexism, misogyny and racism — was complicit in the horrific, accused deed.
This is more than a tale about the (now-ex) International Monetary Fund chief and the working gal who cried rape. The sordid affair brings into sharp relief the vast cultural, legal and moral differences between a young United States and a cowardly and decayed France. A nation where the word of a poor, black immigrant is inferior to that of a rich, white knucklehead.
And it has further strained already tenuous relations between the United States and France, that primary spoke in the America-loathing Axis of Weasel, a moniker France earned in 2003 when it betrayed the US and our allies by refusing to support foreign policies.
Yet the French displayed a twisted kind of backbone when its citizens aided and abetted Strauss-Kahn, from his rise as a horny politician to his starring role as alleged perpetrator of a crime that, in this country, is considered a diabolically violent abuse of power.
But to many in France, attempted rape is something quite different: Free love gone bad.
A joke.
If you want to be revolted by a national mindset proudly on display in the Gallic nation, look no further than this hideous nugget penned by social commentator Sophie de Menthon. A woman.
Frenchmen of all political stripes and social castes, she wrote, have “stood there aghast,” confronted with images of DSK, as he’s affectionately known, handcuffed and under arrest in New York. She went further.
“It creates feelings and reactions which go far beyond what is, essentially, after all just another minor alleged crime.”
Minor. Alleged. Crime.
Good Lord. So sexual abuse is but a small hiccup. Like sticking gum under a subway seat. In this worldview, DSK’s guilt or innocence is of little consequence. That’s because the sexual assault of a poor, powerless lady is nothing at all. But arresting a rich, powerful man is, by definition, the more egregious offense.
Last weekend, a few French feminists — though the phrase sounds like a contradiction in terms — came out to protest the misogyny on display in the case of DSK, and victims of sexual assault have just begun to speak up. They won’t speak out for long.
Victims might start by muzzling former Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou, now a parliamentarian. She called pics of the man in handcuffs, “incredibly brutal, violent and cruel” — but uttered not a word in defense of the alleged victim, a cipher.
“A horrible global lynching!” was how Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a leftist French senator, described the images.
Writing in The Daily Beast, DSK’s philosopher pal, Bernard-Henri Levy, actually wrote that the judge in the case “pretended to take him for a subject of justice like any other.” Dang!
“Do you know who I am?” DSK reportedly said while allegedly attacking the maid.
Le Figaro and Paris Match helpfully named not only DSK’s alleged victim, but for some reason, her 15-year-old daughter. Le Figaro also made a point of giving the accuser’s height — tall — as if to prove that the dwarfish DSK couldn’t possibly have physically overcome the woman.
As the case proceeds, infuriating revelations emerged that friends of the accused fiend tried to buy off his victim through payments offered to her dirt-poor relatives in Guinea. Proudly, they refused.
All I can say is — thank goodness Strauss-Kahn is to be tried in America, not France.
I am proud to live in a nation where the word of a poor, frightened maid can be taken seriously, and her wealthy, self-important, accused tormentor can be frog-marched to jail.
Just like any other accused felon.
SCHOOLS WAY OFF COURSE
High-school math teacher Rivky Love hounded a girl whom she called her “best friend and sister” with late-night texts signed, “Love you.”
The married 36-year-old even offered to slip the Edward R. Murrow student an advance copy of a test. Love was suspended for six months without pay from the Brooklyn school. Then she’s back as if nothing happened.
Meanwhile, a devout Christian elementary-school assistant teacher, Anita Wooten-Francis, 52, says she was ridiculed and fired by her principal because she prayed in an empty classroom at Brooklyn’s PS 224. This, after more than 16 years of unblemished service.
Why can’t Johnny read? At city schools, pervs are a protected class. And quiet devotion is punished.
Have mercy on Mets fans
Sounds like Fred Wilpon needs a drink. Or a ball gag.
In a bizarre interview with The New Yorker, the owner of the “sh- – -y” Mets said shortstop José Reyes stinks, third baseman David Wright is “not a superstar” and Carlos Beltran is a fraction of the player “some shmuck” signed to the Mets. That shmuck would be Wilpon. He later apologized.
The truth? Or a suicide cry? Mets fans don’t need reminding that a trip to Citi Field too often ends in tears.
ESPN’s spoiled sports
Secretaries pimped out by mail-room guys. Rampant drug use. Casual sex between married execs and staffers. Life at the IMF? No, we’re talking about the culture at ESPN — the 24-hour cable network born in 1978 that operated like “Animal House” crossed with “Caligula” for at least the first two decades of its existence, according to a new book by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.
Keith Olbermann comes off better than most on-air personalities — the blowhard was just universally loathed by everyone with whom he shared air space.
Before Steve Phillips romped in a car with an underling who stalked his wife, sexual doings were not just winked at within the walls of ESPN. They were expected. The hits keep on coming.
ESPN’s NHL analyst, Matthew Barnaby, was arrested last week after allegedly berating his wife and shouting racial slurs. Time to put crime-scene tape around ESPN headquarters.
‘Packs’ of smokes
And we used to think banning smoking in bars would never happen.
The city has outlawed most outdoor smoking, threatening to fine folks who light up in parks and beaches. Hooray? Enforcement of the law is lax to nonexistent. And even smokers who obey will just make breathing more toxic by cramming into ever-smaller spaces (like the front of this office building).
Here’s a solution. Move puffers to China. Most people haven’t quit there. Yet.