All the stuff you never knew you needed to know about life in rural France.....and all the stuff the books and magazines won't tell you.

Saturday 22 October 2011

It's That Man Again.......Dominque Strauss-Kahn demands to be heard...

PARIS, FRANCE - SEPTEMBER 04:  Former IMF chie...Image by Getty Images via @daylife
The town of Lille is renowned for

A...the annual Braderie...when stores and stand holders purvey their wares in a weekend of orgiastic shopping
and
B...a cheese.....le Petit Gris, whose aroma is so virulent that is is a contravention of the town bylaws to carry it in a taxi.

It has a Eurostar station as well, but that's by the by.


But Lille has come to the forefront of French news recently following a disagreement between various lodges of the Grand Orient observance practiced in the area.

French freemasonry has little in common with the British version where a disagreement between lodges would give rise only to solicitors jiggling with their trouser legs and Mr. Padge being refused retrospective planning permission to turn the flat above his offices into fifty kennels for immigrant workers.

In France, it is more serious and in Lille it has resulted in a number of local notables ending up being questioned by the police...who in their turn are being questioned by the internal disciplinary service of the police....about a prostitution ring.

Thanks to the Grand Orient squealers, the police have been made aware of a prostitution racket based on two of the best hotels in Lille...the surprise being that one of their narks...concierge at one of these  hotels...is intimately implicated in the affair.

One understands his scruples when one learns that a senior policeman  is also being investigated for involvement in the racket...a policeman who was aiding Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his election campaign as an advisor on security.

Also implicated is a businessman working for a large roadworks firm who happily admits to organising 'parties fines' - orgies might be the best translation here - involving the senior policeman and...inevitably, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

These events took place not only in private apartments in the centre of Paris but also in the United States while Strauss-Kahn was heading up the IMF, the whores being flown out as 'secretaries'.
One wonders whether the firm for whom they supposedly 'worked' will be prosecuted by the French authorities for employing them 'on the black' but, somehow, one doubts it.

Why should a businessman see fit to act as a pimp?
Because, he explains, it was good for business to be able to drop into conversation that his firm had the ear...or some other organ...of Monsieur Strauss-Kahn.
Monsieur Strauss-Kahn, influential member of the PS (Socialist Party) who are in power in the area and, as such, control the award of roadwork contracts.

So, once again, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been the means of exposing areas of French society that might have preferred to continue living under their gilded stones.
Not only has he exposed the phallocractic nature of gender relations in what thinks of itself as high society in France, but now he demonstrates how cheaply a politician's integrity can be bought.


One is accustomed to lumping all politicians together as crooks, capable of any base manoeuvre to get their hands into a few more tills, and the spectacle of a leading man of his party....tipped to wallop Sarkozy in the 2012 Presidential elections...willing to lend himself to such baseness just confirms the cynicism with which politicians are regarded.




General de Gaulle speaking on the BBC during t...Image via Wikipedia
General de Gaulle

There have always been dirty dogs sniffing around the legs of the seats of power, but can you imagine this man cavorting with prostitutes in order to allow a firm to get a contract for public works?

Portrait of Encoch PowellImage via Wikipedia
Enoch Powell



Or this man, despite his undoubted acquaintance with Suetonius' 'Lives of the Caesars'?








                                                                                         




But these men had power...or were on their way to acquiring it.
Modern politicians have not....they are but the chorus line of 'Fiddler on the Roof' kicking up their legs to the baton of Goldman Sachs and their masters approve them holding the same standards as themselves.... frequenters of strip joints and pole dancing venues, all in the interests of business.

Thus the shamelessness of Strauss-Kahn...the standards to which he must conform are not those of the ordinary people...those who work to give their families a decent life...the electors, but the standards of those who created the virtual world of finance that the ordinary people are now paying for.
Elections are a sham. Whatever the face of the political party, its movements are controlled by the bankers who use the legitimacy of elected governments to line their own pockets.

So, returning to France after the shenanigins of  New York does Strauss-Kahn creep into obscurity?
Far from it. He demands to be heard. He appears on TV, downplays his conduct.
When a young woman brings charges of attempted rape against him......he demands to be heard - as a witness, if you please!
And now he demands to be heard in the affair of the prostitutes of Lille...regarding mention of his activities as 'malevolent' in character...
He is a man in a hurry.
If the PS win the Presidential elections he wants his hand back in the till, but while scum continues to rise to the surface he has to take a back seat.
He wants it all sorted.
Now.

The affair also shows the difference between French and British society.
By now, in Britain, some rugby club would be altering the words of their version of the 'Twelve Days of Christmas'.......substituting Strauss-Kahn for Lord Montague of Beaulieu.
In France people just shake their heads. Mockery of politicians has consequences, as a few radio presenters have discovered to their cost.

But there will be an effect.
Down in the gendarmerie barracks at Partouze les Bains the adjutant is speaking to the duty officer.

We're getting more and more sex cases reported....and people want action.
As if the usual incest cases aren't enough now we have some pest exposing himself under the windows of the old peeoples' home.
What's being done about it?

Well, I'm waiting, sir.

Waiting for what?

For Dominique Strauss-Kahn to demand to be heard.










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23 comments:

  1. Oh, he sounds like such an utterly horrible man! Why on earth does his wife (and France) put up with him?

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  2. Pueblo girl, unadulterated filth, isn't he?

    Probably a perfect gentleman with his wife...after all, she has money.
    Rough stuff is for those who can't defend themselves.

    As for why France puts up with it...well, depends which France.
    The bit that presents itself as France...you know, all the so called wit, sophistication, the polished lid of the sewer, sees nothing wrong with exploiting people.
    The other France, the ordinary people, think he and what he represents stinks...but have no hope of doing anything about it.

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  3. An unpleasant man, with many unpleasant links and enough clout to continue getting away with dirty dealings.
    Who coined that term "filthy lucre"?

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  4. dinahmow, I think lucre is biblical. though I can't place the quote tonight..but as to how he gets away with it...well, our rulers live to other rules thas our own.

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  5. Alas, much can be said about the moral health of a nation by the type of politician it allows to run amuck over it. For the first time ever I am looking at Cameron and Clegg in an almost favourable light.

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  6. Not a pleasant man in any sense and no, he shouldn't get away with it. But then over here we have a deeply unpleasant press that offends in a different way.

    Power corrupts and always will.

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  7. Steve, I put up a reply before, but blogger seems to have swallowed it...it may reappear, who knows?
    Still, yes, it does make Cameron and Clegg look almost decent, doesn't it.

    Mark, yes, sensationalism, voyeurism...I agree.
    What bothers me about this man is that he can afford to ignore widespread public distaste.

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  8. Eww, he makes me feel sick all over again. What a tawdry business run by tawdry people.

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  9. What a disgusting man...almost as disgusting as the smell of le Petit Gris. I should know..I once bought some on a day trip to France and my fellow travellers suffered all the way home

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  10. Sarah, and worse, our money ends up in their pockets...

    Ayak...oh I just bet you were popular!

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  11. Fly, I so long to post a link to this on one of the rose-tinted expat forums, with their oft-repeated mantra of "Britain bad, France good"! Heaven knows, I hold no brief for many of our present bunch of UK politicians, but the duck-house-on-expenses scandal pales into insignificance compared to this. A totally repellent and corrupt individual,

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  12. Perpetuas, go on, do it! I would be delighted.
    Life is so peaceable here, just the usual corruption and attempts at intimidation - The Neighbour firing shots - that it would be nice to have a new bunch of 'disgusted of Bouze les Puits' to strop my claws on.

    I so agree with your view of him....and what worries me most is the support for him in his own circles.
    French friends report universal disgust...not only with him but with the political class he is seen to personify and say that the danger is that people will turn to Marine Le Pen in a sort of ' a plague on both your houses' reaction.

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  13. Your wish is my command, Fly!

    http://www.totalfrance.com/france/forum/viewtopic.php?t=114018

    Whether my post will elicit any reaction is another matter. Too many expats really can't stomach admitting that there are flaws in their chosen bit of paradise....

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  14. Perpetua...not only priest but...genie of the lamp!

    I'll be interested to see if you're right....

    I don't follow the forums...except Survive France where people have to put up their real names which seems to stop a lot of the bitchiness...except from the really rhino hided bitches that is...

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  15. Perpetua....results so far...
    I looked at my stat counter thingy which I suppose to be pretty reliable.
    It showed at the time of reading 34visits originating from your post on Total France.

    Of these, only 6 spent any time on the post....how boring must I be!

    The six who spent time on the blog took

    40 minutes
    4 minutes 21 seconds
    2 minutes 34 seconds
    2 minutes 12 seconds
    20 seconds
    7 seconds

    the last originating from Albert, Picardie.
    Now, cross referencing with the two responses to your post it appears that the responent who was up to speed on the situation and who read the article (his claims not mine) is listed as being in Picardie!
    He should enter a speed reading competition...but not one for comprehension!

    Sorry if you're getting it in the neck on my behalf...it only occurred to me afterwards that I couldn't get at the replies as I'm not on the blasted forum!
    Duh!

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  16. No need to apologise, Fly. After 24 years as a public librarian and 23 in ordained ministry, I have a hide like a rhinoceros where criticism is concerned. :-) I do wonder though at the eagerness with which some men leap to defend him.....

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  17. Perpetua, I am still hooting in vulgar fashion over the defender of DSK and the presumption of innocence who referred to him as an 'end user'!

    What is is that these people do not understand about what is wrong with a politician going along with being set up with prostitutes and parties by a representative of a commercial firm?

    And what exactly is the nature of the 'personal interest' expressed by the second respondent? The mind boggles! Member of a lodge of the Grand Orient rite? Executive of a roadworks firm? Police nark?
    To misquote Private Eye
    'I wish we could be told.'

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  18. Mark in Mayenne, biscuit, cake and the icing thereon given half a chance.

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  19. Yet another wonderfully insightful blog from you. Your skills consistently dazzle me and they really are little works of art in their consistency and conclusiveness.

    You also made me long to revisit Lille.

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  20. mrwriteon..from you that is a compliment I appreciate.
    I like Lille..I liked all the northern towns.

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  21. It is just amazing how a bit of power can make someone so full of themselves to the extent that they think that they can get away with anything and everything. I think that corrupt is the word that I am looking for.

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  22. cheshire wife, and what horrifies me is that they are allowed to get away with any and everything.

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