French IMF candidate an 'insistent' womaniser

The French media and political world has been thrown into ferment by an allegation that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the European candidate to be the next head of the IMF, is an "insistent" womaniser.

The allegation was made in a blog written by the Brussels correspondent of the newspaper Libération, Jean Quatremer. He said there was a risk that the former French finance minister's behaviour towards women might cause a scandal at the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington.

"The only real problem with Strauss-Kahn is his attitude to women." He is "too insistent," M. Quatremer wrote. "The IMF is an international institution with Anglo-Saxon morals. One inappropriate gesture, one unfortunate comment, and there will be a media hue and cry."

M. Quatremer's blog was immediately attacked on the website of the magazine Marianne as "crossing a yellow line". He was also criticised in a column in his own newspaper yesterday by the media commentator, Daniel Schneidermann.

How was it, he asked, that French journalists felt able to make such allegations on the internet but not in print? Under the French law on privacy, it is forbidden to discuss private lives, even those of public figures.

M. Schneidermann went on to say, however, that the Socialist politician's reputation as a womaniser was well known. "I have ... heard many reports, some at first hand, from women journalists" who have been subject to "advances" from M. Strauss-Kahn during interviews, he wrote.

M. Strauss-Kahn's office has declined to comment officially. One close adviser told Marianne: "It's annoying but it's not so serious as all that."

M. Strauss-Kahn, 58, has been recommended for the soon-to-be-vacant post of IMF director by President Nicolas Sarkozy. The choice was endorsed earlier this week by almost all other EU governments. Britain is said to have been doubtful whether M. Strauss-Kahn - despite his reputation as a market-oriented and modernising French Socialist - was the right man for the job.

Defending his blog, M. Quatremer said: "I'm fed up with the generalised hypocrisy of the French press. A recent book tells us that that the split between [the Socialist presidential candidate] Ségolène Royal and [her partner and party leader] François Hollande disrupted her campaign. I think it's shocking that those who knew [in the press] said nothing. The people have a right to know."

He said he was an admirer of M. Strauss-Kahn and his blog was intended as a friendly warning. Neither France nor M. Strauss-Kahn could afford another calamity like the episode in 1991 when the former French presidential adviser, Jacques Attali, left the presidency of the European Development Bank in London after being accused of spending too much money on decorating his offices.

M. Schneidermann, the Libération media commentator, said the episode pointed to a growing rift between internet and print or broadcast journalism in France. The traditional media toe the line of the law protecting private lives and "scrupulously avoids" such subjects. Internet journalism says what it likes, sometimes without proper investigation.

"Neither approach is entirely satisfactory," he said.

The question of privacy law vs the public "right to know" has become an insistent issue in France in recent months. A rift between President Sarkozy and his wife, Cécilia, during the presidential campaign in the spring was hardly reported in the French press.

Even "people" magazines such as Paris-Match stayed clear of the subject. Last week, however, Match published photographs of Mme Royal in a bikini while on holiday with her 15-year-old daughter. She says she plans to sue. The group that owns Match is controlled by Arnaud Lagardère, a close friend of M. Sarkozy.