The Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair shines a troubling light on French society – and US justice
The DSK drama unfolding in New York was unforgettable. Powerful men everywhere have been put on notice
I will long remember the statement that the lawyer Kenneth P Thompson delivered to a group of reporters on the pavement outside the New York state supreme court around noon last Friday. I happened to be in New York that day and caught it live on television. Thompson represents the Guinean woman who says she was raped by Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a suite in the New York Sofitel this May. The lawyer had just seen his case begin to fold, as the prosecution acknowledged multiple inconsistencies and apparent lies in the woman's story, as well as suspicious circumstances around it.
Thompson, who specialises in employment discrimination and sexual harassment cases, relentlessly detailed what he claimed were the indubitable facts of the assault: the violence that had torn a ligament in the woman's shoulder (the advocate touched his own shoulder to reinforce the point); the bruising of her vagina; the ripped stockings. Then this: "The next thing I want to tell you is that when she was fighting to get away, when she was on her knees and he was sexually assaulting her, after he finished, she got up and started to run for that door and started spitting Dominique Strauss-Kahn's semen out of her mouth in disgust all over that hotel room.
Illustration by Matt Kenyon
"So when you hear about the forensic evidence, the DNA evidence, she spit his semen on the wall, she spit it on the floor – and guess what? As soon as her supervisor came upstairs, she saw that. The security staff at the Sofitel, they saw that. The detectives at NYPD, they saw that. And there was a prosecutor from the Manhattan District Attorney's office who went into that hotel room on the day it happened, and she showed him where the semen was."
If the woman and her lawyer are telling the truth, then this was a glimpse of what a violent sexual assault by a powerful man on a vulnerable woman looks like. Everyone should face up to the sickening reality of it. If, however, they are not telling the truth, then this was the assassination of a man's character, in broad daylight, on a New York sidewalk. Nothing the man who might have been president of France can do now will bring his reputation back to him. Whenever his name is mentioned, the first thing anyone will think of is this affair.
As the case against DSK is put in question, and may even be dismissed within a few weeks, so the Franco-American recriminations heat up. "Whether or not DSK goes free," writes the American journalist Peter Beinart in the Daily Beast, "his case reflects well on American justice. We can hold our heads high." This was a "downright inspiring" example of equality before the law. In the other corner, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy rails against "the cannibalisation of Justice by the Sideshow", referring to Thompson's sidewalk press conference, and says that his friend DSK must be granted "not only his freedom but – even more importantly – restoration of his honour".
What we have here are echoes of a deep difference between French and American attitudes to matters of privacy and reputation. The Yale legal scholar James Q Whitman has argued that the essence of the American tradition is levelling down while the French (and German) tradition is about levelling up. "We are all aristocrats now," says the spirit of Paris. Even the poorest woman of immigrant origin should be entitled to civility, respect and, yes, honour, as if she were a nobleman of yore. (Note the unexpected reappearance of that old-fashioned word "honour" in BHL's plaidoyer for DSK.) "There are no more aristocrats," cries the spirit of New York, and everyone should be treated with an equal lack of respect. The king and the pauper, the petty thief and the mighty banker: all are liable to humiliation byperp walk.
It's a brilliant analysis by Whitman but, looking at both sides of the Atlantic, I am bound to exclaim: if only!
If only it were true that the poor immigrant or Roma woman were treated in continental Europe with the respect and civility that was once reserved for great gentlemen. That may be the ideal type underlying French and German law, as Whitman persuasively argues – but the reality on the ground is that a poor woman from, for example, Guinea, is as likely to be oppressed, exploited and abused in Paris as she is in New York. As we are learning in more detail from this scandal, powerful men expect (invite? seduce? extort?) sexual favours from less powerful women in France as much as – perhaps more than – anywhere else.
If only it were true that the powerful and the powerless were truly equal before the law in the United States. That is the symbolic message sent by the unforgettable New York perp walk of the man who might otherwise have become the president of France. (Perp, by the way, is short for perpetrator.) But the message is doubly deceptive. First, it is just not true that the humiliation is meted out equally to all. Rich, powerful and well-connected people can often avoid the perp walk, and spend a lot of time and money making sure that they do. The history of the perp walk in New York is also the history of the political ambitions of district attorneys such as Rudy Giuliani. Second, in today's media world, where pictures are so much more powerful than words, it amounts to a conviction without trial. And a conviction in the court of YouTube allows of no appeal.
When he initially defended the fact that DSK was forced to walk the walk – unshaven, dishevelled, handcuffed – the New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, told reporters: "If you don't want to do the perp walk, don't do the crime." But what if it turns out you didn't do the crime? Ah, mused Bloomberg, "then society really should look in the mirror and say we should be more careful next time". More recently Bloomberg has changed his tune, saying that he has "always thought that the perp walks were outrageous". Now he tells us.
Meanwhile, the damage to Strauss-Kahn's reputation has been done, irreparably. Joining the Beinart song of American self-congratulation, Joe Nocera of the New York Times writes breezily: "If the worst he [DSK] suffers is a perp walk, a few days in Rikers Island and some nasty headlines, one's heart ought not to bleed." OK, wait till it happens to you, Joe. Then we'll inspect your heart for signs of bleeding.
One good thing will probably come of this affair. Powerful men everywhere, not just in France, will be put on notice. Behave in certain ways, and this might happen to you.
Beyond that, however, there is little cause either for French or American satisfaction. Sexual mores at the very top of French society are revealed in a dark light. The perp walk is a travesty of what justice should be. The American eagle should look to the mote in his eye and the French cock to the beam in his.
· guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011
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