Disbelief, shame, humiliation ... the French have no words left.
The images of a handcuffed and unshaven Dominique are constantly being aired on all the news channels of the world.
The demise of a powerful man — the managing director of the International Monetary Fund who was poised, according to many public opinion polls, to be the next president of France — are as shocking as they are destabilizing.
Yet in the French reactions one can clearly sense a gender divide. Women tend to concentrate on the accusations — “How could he have he done it? To be a womanizer is one thing, to be accused of sexual assault even in a Latin culture is another: let justice decide.”
Men are more divided between their sense of unease over what Strauss-Kahn is accused of and resentment of the way he has been treated by American justice and police officials. The violence of egalitarian justice, the deliberate humiliation of a man presumed innocent until found guilty, is unsettling to them, and arouses echoes of a cultural anti-Americanism that had largely disappeared since the election of Barack Obama. In some quarters, the question “what’s wrong with Strauss-Kahn” has almost been replaced by “what’s wrong with the United States?”
Beyond the personal tragedy of a man and his family, the consequences of the scandal are manifold — for France, for France’s image in the world, for the fate of the euro, and, ultimately for the image of the West in the emerging world.
For France, this is a political earthquake. With the fall from grace of the favorite in the presidential sweepstakes all the cards have been reshuffled. The only comment one can make with any certainty is that the anti-elite feelings aroused by the scandal will increase the chances of the extreme-right National Front party of Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections.
Beyond the presidential election, there is also a deep sense of national humiliation and shame in France. France’s top civil servants and economists have long occupied prominent international positions, thereby reinforcing France’s global influence.
Now the question is whether the Strauss-Kahn scandal will accelerate the “marginalization” of a country that, like other Western powers, has to adjust to the realities of a more multipolar world?
For Europe and the euro, the scandal could not come at a worse moment. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was a highly respected and competent negotiator, a man who could convince by the power of his personality and the strength of his arguments. He will be missed at a crucial moment as the euro is locked in a fateful struggle in Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain.
In emerging countries, such as China and India, the Strauss-Kahn scandal may serve as the confirmation of what Asians have been saying for quite some time now: “Our time has come.”
Yesterday the house of Lehman Brothers fell, they may think, today the head of the I.M.F. succumbs in an ignominious and shocking manner. How can the West pretend to teach us lessons in financial capitalism? The moment has come for emerging powers to seize the baton and assume our legitimate share of international responsibilities.
According to the New York police, Strauss-Kahn is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, but he is also emerging as a dark “man for all seasons” — a Frenchman for the Americans, a Western man for the Asians. A personal tragedy can be a highly symbolic moment.
By Dominique Moïsi, a senior adviser at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI) and the author, most recently, of Un Juif improbable.