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

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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.

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?

Image 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.