What Really Happened to Strauss-Kahn?

December 22, 2011
Edward Jay Epstein
http://media.nybooks.com/strauss.html

May 14, 2011, was a horrendous day for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund and leading contender to unseat Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France in the April 2012 elections. Waking up in the presidential suite of the Sofitel New York hotel that morning, he was supposed to be soon enroute to Paris and then to Berlin where he had a meeting the following day with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He could not have known that by late afternoon he would, instead, be imprisoned in New York on a charge of sexual assault. He would then be indicted by a grand jury on seven counts of attempted rape, sexual assault, and unlawful imprisonment, placed under house arrest for over a month, and, two weeks before all the charges were dismissed by the prosecutor on August 23, 2011, sued for sexual abuse by the alleged victim.

He knew he had a serious problem with one of his BlackBerry cell phones—which he called his IMF BlackBerry. This was the phone he used to send and receive texts and e-mails—including for both personal and IMF business. According to several sources who are close to DSK, he had received a text message that morning from Paris from a woman friend temporarily working as a researcher at the Paris offices of the UMP, Sarkozy’s center-right political party. She warned DSK, who was then pulling ahead of Sarkozy in the polls, that at least one private e-mail he had recently sent from his BlackBerry to his wife, Anne Sinclair, had been read at the UMP offices in Paris.1 It is unclear how the UMP offices might have received this e-mail, but if it had come from his IMF BlackBerry, he had reason to suspect he might be under electronic surveillance in New York. He had already been warned by a friend in the French diplomatic corps that an effort would be made to embarrass him with a scandal. The warning that his BlackBerry might have been hacked was therefore all the more alarming.

At 10:07 AM he called his wife in Paris on his IMF BlackBerry, and in a conversation that lasted about six minutes told her he had a big problem. He asked her to contact a friend, Stéphane Fouks, who could come to his home on the Place des Vosges and who could arrange to have both his BlackBerry and iPad examined by an expert in such matters. He had no time to do anything about it that morning. He had scheduled an early lunch with his twenty-six-year-old daughter Camille, a graduate student at Columbia, who wanted to introduce him to her new boyfriend. After that, he had to get to JFK Airport in time to catch his 4:40 PM flight to Paris.

He had finished packing his suitcase just before noon, according to his own account, and then took a shower in the bathroom, which is connected to the bed in the suite by an interior corridor. According to the hotel’s electronic key records, which were provided to DSK’s lawyers, Nafissatou Diallo, a maid, had entered the presidential suite (room 2806) between 12:06 and 12:07 PM (such records are only accurate to the nearest minute).2 Ordinarily, cleaning personnel do not enter a room to clean when a guest is still in it. According to DSK’s account, his bags were visible in the foyer when he emerged naked from the bathroom into the interior corridor. At this point, according to his account, he encountered the maid in the corridor by the bathroom. (The maid, for her part, says she encountered him coming out of the bedroom.) Phone records show that by 12:13 PM he was speaking to his daughter Camille on his BlackBerry. The call lasted for forty seconds.

What took place between DSK and the maid in those six to seven intervening minutes is a matter of dispute. DNA evidence found outside the bathroom door showed her saliva mixed with his semen. The New York prosecutor concluded that a “hurried sexual encounter” took place and DSK’s lawyers have admitted as much, while claiming that what happened was consensual. The maid has brought a civil suit claiming he used force. It is not clear when she left the room since key card records do not show times of exit. What is known is that DSK called his daughter on his IMF BlackBerry at 12:13 to tell her he would be late.

After DSK completed his call, he dressed and put on his light black topcoat. He carried with him only one small overnight bag and a briefcase (which contained his iPad and several spare phones) and took the elevator to the lobby. At 12:28 PM the hotel security cameras show him departing. He had to go eight blocks to the McCormick & Schmick’s restaurant on Sixth Avenue between 51st and 52nd Street. He was delayed by heavy traffic on Sixth Avenue. The restaurant camera shows that he arrived at 12:54.

Camille was with her new boyfriend. They had a quick meal, and at 2:15 PM, according to the restaurant’s surveillance cameras, DSK got in another taxi to go to the airport. Almost immediately, he discovered that his IMF BlackBerry was missing. It was the phone he had arranged to have examined for bugs in Paris and it was the phone that contained the earlier text message warning him about the interception of his messages. At 2:16 PM he called Camille, who had also just left the restaurant, on his spare BlackBerry and had her go back to the restaurant to search for it. Camera footage at the restaurant shows her crawling under the table. At 2:28 PM she sent him a text message saying that she could not find it. So DSK continued on to the airport.

Back at the Sofitel, meanwhile, Nafissatou Diallo, the maid he had encountered in the presidential suite, had told hotel security that she had been sexually assaulted by a client in that suite. A thirty-two-year-old immigrant from Guinea, she had been working at the Sofitel for three years. At 2:30 PM she was shown a photograph of DSK by the hotel’s security people. According to the official bill of particulars—the statement of the basic facts of the case filed by the prosecutors—the police had apparently not yet fully taken over the case, even though the encounter between DSK and Diallo had occurred over two hours earlier.

Part of the delay in bringing in the police may have been the result of Diallo’s not immediately voicing her complaint. After she had left DSK in the presidential suite around 12:13 PM—the time of his call to Camille—she remained on the VIP floor. The hotel’s electronic key records indicate that at 12:26 PM she entered 2820, another VIP suite on the same floor that she had already entered several times earlier that morning. Then, one to two minutes later, she went back to the now empty presidential suite. A few minutes after that, she encountered another housekeeper, her supervisor, in the corridor. In the course of their conversation, Diallo asked the supervisor what would happen if a hotel guest took advantage of a hotel employee. Initially, Diallo told her that this was only a hypothetical question; but then, when pressed further, she said that she had been assaulted by the guest in the presidential suite. The supervisor then brought her to the head of housekeeping, Renata Markozani, who reentered the presidential suite with Diallo at 12:42, according to the key records, and notified the hotel’s security and management personnel. At 12:52 PM, Diallo is seen arriving at the hotel’s security office on the ground floor, located near the 45th Street entrance. She is wearing a beige uniform, and is accompanied by Renata Markozani, whom she towers over. (She is five feet ten inches tall.)

Shortly thereafter the hotel’s own security team was augmented by John Sheehan, a security expert who is identified on LinkedIn as “director of safety and security” at Accor, a part of the French-based Accor Group, which owns the Sofitel. Sheehan, who was at home in Washingtonville, New York, that morning, received a call from the Sofitel at 1:03 PM. He then rushed to the hotel. While en route, according to his cell phone records, he called a number with a 646 prefix in the United States. But from these records neither the name nor the location of the person he called can be determined. When I called the number a man with a heavy French accent answered and asked whom I wanted to speak with at Accor.3

The man I asked to talk to—and to whom I was not put through—was René-Georges Querry, Sheehan’s ultimate superior at Accor and a well-connected former chief of the French anti-gang brigades, who was now head of security for the Accor Group. Before joining Accor Group in 2003, he had worked closely in the police with Ange Mancini, who is now coordinator for intelligence for President Sarkozy. Querry, at the time that Sheehan was making his call to the 646 number, was arriving at a soccer match in Paris where he would be seated in the box of President Sarkozy. Querry denies receiving any information about the unfolding drama at the Sofitel until after DSK was taken into custody about four hours later.

Another person at the Accor Group whom Sheehan might have alerted was Xavier Graff, the duty officer at the Accor Group in Paris. Graff was responsible that weekend for handling emergencies at Accor Group hotels, including the Sofitel in New York. His name only emerged five weeks later when he sent a bizarre e-mail to his friend Colonel Thierry Bourret, the head of an environment and public health agency, claiming credit for “bringing down” DSK. After the e-mail was leaked to Le Figaro, Graff described it as a joke (it resulted, however, in his suspension as director of emergencies by the Accor Group). Even jokes can have a basis. In this case the joke was made by the person who was directly responsible for passing on information to his superiors, including the head of security at Accor, René-Georges Querry—information that, if acted on by informing the American authorities, could have helped destroy DSK’s career. But like Querry, Graff denied receiving any calls or messages from New York until later that evening, telling a French newspaper that the failure to inform him was an “incredible miss” (“loupé”).

By the time Sheehan was called by the hotel at 1:03 PM, Diallo was seated on a bench in the hotel’s ground floor service area, just off the service entrance on 45th Street. Behind her was a “Dutch door,” with the upper half opened, that led to the hotel’s security office. Surveillance camera footage shows her entering the area with a tall unidentified man at 12:52 PM. She remains there until 2:05 PM. At 12:56, she is joined there by Brian Yearwood, the large, heavy-set man who is the hotel’s chief engineer. Yearwood had just come down from the presidential suite on the twenty-eighth floor, which he had entered at 12:51, according to the key records. Yearwood remained close to Diallo as she spoke to Adrian Branch, the security chief for the hotel, who remained behind the half-shut door of the security office. She can be seen gesturing with her hands for about four minutes, pointing to different parts of her body over and over again, suggesting she was telling and retelling her story.

At 1:28, Sheehan, still on the way to the hotel, sent a text message to Yearwood. And then another text message to an unidentified recipient at 1:30. At 1:31—one hour after Diallo had first told a supervisor that she had been assaulted by the client in the presidential suite—Adrian Branch placed a 911 call to the police. Less than two minutes later, the footage from the two surveillance cameras shows Yearwood and an unidentified man walking from the security office to an adjacent area. This is the same unidentified man who had accompanied Diallo to the security office at 12:52 PM. There, the two men high-five each other, clap their hands, and do what looks like an extraordinary dance of celebration that lasts for three minutes. They are then shown standing by the service door leading to 45th Street—apparently waiting for the police to arrive—where they are joined at 2:04 PM by Florian Schutz, the hotel manager.

A minute later, at 2:05 PM, the footage shows two uniformed police officers arriving and then accompanying Diallo to an adjoining office. It is unclear if the police officially took over the case at this time or later. There is so far no explanation for why the security staff had delayed the call to the NYPD that would lead to a scandal involving the possible future president of France. What is clear is that they did so just three minutes after receiving a message from Sheehan. Nor is it clear why the two men were celebrating.

The police arrived, according to the hotel’s security camera footage, at 2:05 PM. They then can be seen escorting Diallo to a room across from the security office. There is an unexplained discrepancy here concerning the information in the bill of particulars, which says that at approximately 2:30 PM, “a photograph of the defendant was shown to the witness [i.e., Diallo] by hotel security without police involvement.” If so, even after leaving the bench (and video surveillance) and going to a room with the police, she remained in the custody of Sofitel security. I asked both Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne and Deputy Inspector Kim Royster why, according to the bill of particulars, the police were not officially involved at this point, but they declined to comment.

More than an hour later, at 3:28 PM, the police took her to St. Luke’s Hospital, where she was medically examined and they then formally interviewed her. She described to them a brutal and sustained sexual attack in which DSK locked the suite door, dragged her into the bedroom, and then dragged her down the inner corridor to a spot close to the bathroom door—a distance of about forty feet—and, after attempting to assault her both anally and vaginally, forced her twice to perform fellatio. After that, she fled the suite. As has been seen, according to the electronic key information, and to the record of DSK’s call to his daughter showing him speaking to her at 12:13, we can reasonably conclude that any such actions could have taken place only within a period of six or seven minutes, between 12:06–07 and 12:13, when he called his daughter.

At 3:01 PM, as DSK was approaching the airport, he was still attempting to find his missing phone. He attempted to call it from his spare but received no answer. What he did not know was that at 12:51, according to the records of the BlackBerry company, it had been somehow disabled. At 3:29 PM, evidently unaware of what was happening at the Sofitel, he called the hotel from the taxi, saying, according to the police transcript, “I am Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I was a guest. I left my phone behind.” He then said he was in room “2806.” He was asked to give a phone number, so that he could be called back, after 2806 was searched for his phone.

When he was called back thirteen minutes later, he spoke to a hotel employee who was in the presence of police detective John Mongiello. The hotel employee falsely told him that his phone had been found and asked where it could be delivered. DSK told him that he was at JFK Airport and that “I have a problem because my flight leaves at 4:26 PM.” He was reassured that someone could bring it to the airport in time. “OK, I am at the Air France Terminal, Gate 4, Flight 23,” DSK responded. So the police rushed to the airport. At 4:45 PM, police called DSK off the plane and took him into custody.

DSK was then jailed and indicted by a grand jury on seven counts, including attempted rape, sexual abuse, and unlawful imprisonment. The court eventually dropped all the charges against him because the prosecutors found that the complainant, Diallo, had proven to be an untruthful witness. They wrote in the motion for dismissal that “the nature and number of the complainant’s falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt.” They said that she “has given irreconcilable accounts of what happened,” and had lied not only to the prosecutors but under oath to the grand jury about her whereabouts after the encounter. She stated that she had hid in the hall after leaving the presidential suite, and entered no other room on the twenty-eighth floor until she told another maid about the attack (which was approximately fifteen minutes later).

When asked why she had not used her pass key to go into another room, she said they all had “Do Not Disturb” signs on the door. After her grand jury testimony, prosecutors discovered that this was false when the hotel belatedly provided them with the electronic key records showing that Diallo had entered room 2820 at 12:26 PM, after her encounter with DSK. The same record also showed that she had also entered room 2820 prior to her encounter with DSK at a time when the occupant had not checked out and may have been in the room. Why she concealed visiting 2820 was “inexplicable” to the prosecutors, who noted in their motion for dismissal that if she had mentioned her visits to 2820, it would have been declared part of the crime scene and searched by the police. But she did not do so.

Nor were DSK’s lawyers able to find an explanation. When they attempted to learn the identity of the occupant of 2820, Sofitel refused to release it on grounds of privacy. Given Diallo’s conflicting accounts, all that we really know about what happened in the nearby room 2820 is that Diallo went there both before and after her encounter with DSK and then omitted the latter visit from her sworn testimony to the grand jury. We still do not know if there was anyone in 2820 when she entered it again following the encounter with DSK or if, prior to the police arriving, anyone influenced her to omit mention of room 2820.

The Sofitel electronic key record, which the hotel did not turn over to the prosecutors until the next week, contained another unexplained anomaly. Two individuals, not one, entered DSK’s suite between 12:05 and 12:06 PM while he was showering. Each used a different key card entry. The key card used at 12:06 belonged to Diallo; the key card used at 12:05 belonged to Syed Haque, a room service employee who, according to his account, came to pick up the breakfast dishes. If he did so, he would have turned left and gone to the dining room. But Haque has refused to be interviewed by DSK’s lawyers, so his precise movements have not been made public. Since the key cards do not register the time of exit, it cannot be determined from them if both parties were in the room at the same time or, for that matter, at the time of Diallo’s encounter with DSK.

DSK’s BlackBerry, with its messages, is still missing. Investigations by both the police and private investigators retained by DSK’s lawyers failed to find it. While DSK believed he had left it in the Sofitel, the records obtained from BlackBerry show that the missing phone’s GPS circuitry was disabled at 12:51. This stopped the phone from sending out signals identifying its location. Apart from the possibility of an accident, for a phone to be disabled in this way, according to a forensic expert, required technical knowledge about how the BlackBerry worked.

From electronic information that became available to investigators in November 2011, it appears the phone never left the Sofitel. If it was innocently lost, whoever found it never used it, raising the question of by whom and why it was disabled at 12:51. In any case, its absence made it impossible for DSK to check—as he had planned to do—to see if it had been compromised. Nor was it possible to verify from the phone itself the report he received on May 14 that his messages were being intercepted. So we cannot confirm the warning to DSK that he was under surveillance on that disastrous day.

One vexing mystery concerns the one-hour time gap in reporting the alleged attack on Diallo. After she said that she had been the victim of a brutal and sustained sexual assault, it is hard to understand how the security staff would have ruled out that she might require immediate medical attention. But as has been seen, until 1:31, several minutes after receiving a message from Sheehan, the security staff did not make the 911 call. She did not arrive at St. Luke’s Hospital until 3:57 PM, nearly four hours after the alleged attack. We do not know what decisions were made during that one-hour interval or how they influenced what was to later unfold with such dramatic impact.

By the time the 911 call was finally made, the hotel’s management was presumably aware of the political explosion and scandal DSK’s arrest would cause. DSK could no longer be a challenger to Sarkozy. Such considerations, and the opportunities they presented, may have had no part whatever in the hotel’s handling of the situation, but without knowing the content of any messages between the hotel managers in New York and the security staffs in New York or Paris, among others, we cannot be sure. Meanwhile, several mysteries remain. Was there anyone in room 2820 besides Diallo during and after the encounter with DSK? If so, who were they and what were they doing there; and why, in any case, did Diallo deny that she’d gone to the room? Because she denied it, the police, according to the prosecutor’s recommendation for dismissal, did not search 2820 or declare it a crime scene. And where, if it still exists, is the BlackBerry that DSK lost and feared was hacked?

All we know for sure is that someone, or possibly an accident, abruptly disabled it from signaling its location at 12:51 PM. DSK himself has not explained why he was so concerned about the possible interception of his messages on this BlackBerry and its disappearance. According to stories in Libération and other French journals on November 11, 2011, DSK sent text messages on a borrowed cell phone to at least one person named in the still-unfolding affair involving the Carlton Hotel in Lille, a scandal in which corporations allegedly provided high-class escort women to government officials. (DSK denies that he was connected to the prostitution ring.) If DSK sent these messages, may he also have received embarrassing messages back on his own BlackBerry that could have been damaging to his reputation and political ambitions? Or his concern could also have proceeded from other matters, such as the sensitive negotiations he was conducting for the IMF to stave off the euro crises. Whatever happened to his phone, and the content on it, his political prospects were effectively ended by the events of that day.

1 These statements, along with others in this article, were confirmed by sources who prefer to remain anonymous but are known to the author, who has shared his information with the editors.

2 For this article, along with court and other legal documents, I had access to Sofitel electronic key swipe records, time-stamped security camera videotapes, and records for a cell phone used on the day of May 14 by John Sheehan, a security employee of Accor, the company that owns the Sofitel hotel.

3 I had access to the record of only one cell phone used by the Accor Group's security man, John Sheehan. Neither Sheehan nor the hotel's security director, Adrian Branch, returned my calls. Through an assistant Brian Yearwood, the hotel's chief engineer, said he had no comment.

Libyan 'Revolution' made in France

From the Asian Times:
Let's start with the basics. The Frogs did it. It's always worth repeating; this is a French war. The Americans don't even call it a war; it's a "kinetic action" or something. The "rebel" Transitional National Council" (TNC) is a French invention.

And yes - this is above all neo-Napoleonic President Nicolas Sarkozy's war. He's the George Clooney character in the movie (poor Clooney). Everybody else, from David of Arabia Cameron to Nobel Peace Prize winner and multiple war developer Barack Obama, are supporting actors.

As already reported by Asia Times Online, this war started in October 2010 when Gaddafi's chief of protocol, Nuri Mesmari, defected to Paris, was approached by French intelligence and for all practical purposes a military coup d'etat was concocted, involving defectors in Cyrenaica.

Sarko had a bag full of motives to exact revenge on The Big G.

French banks had told him that Gaddafi was about to transfer his billions of euros to Chinese banks. Thus Gaddafi could not by any means become an example to other Arab nations or sovereign funds.

French corporations told Sarko that Gaddafi had decided not to buy Rafale fighters anymore, and not to hire the French to build a nuclear plant; he was more concerned in investing in social services.

Energy giant Total wanted a much bigger piece of the Libyan energy cake - which was being largely eaten, on the European side, by Italy's ENI, especially because Premier Silvio "bunga bunga" Berlusconi, a certified Big G fan, had clinched a complex deal with Gaddafi.

Thus the military coup was perfected in Paris until December; the first popular demonstrations in Cyrenaica in February - largely instigated by the plotters - were hijacked. The self-promoting philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy flew his white shirt over an open torso to Benghazi to meet the "rebels" and phone Sarkozy, virtually ordering him to recognize them in early March as legitimate (not that Sarko needed any encouragement).

The TNC was invented in Paris, but the United Nations also duly gobbled it up as the "legitimate" government of Libya - just as NATO did not have a UN mandate to go from a no-fly zone to indiscriminate "humanitarian" bombing, culminating with the current siege of Sirte.

The French and the British redacted what would become UN Resolution 1973. Washington merrily joined the party. The US State Department brokered a deal with the House of Saud through which the Saudis would guarantee an Arab League vote as a prelude for the UN resolution, and in exchange would be left alone to repress any pro-democracy protests in the Persian Gulf, as they did, savagely, in Bahrain.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC - then transmuted into Gulf Counter-Revolution Club) also had tons of reasons to get rid of Gaddafi. The Saudis would love to accommodate a friendly emirate in northern Africa, especially by getting rid of the ultra-bad blood between Gaddafi and King Abdullah. The Emirates wanted a new place to invest and "develop". Qatar, very cozy with Sarko, wanted to make money - as in handling the new oil sales of the "legitimate" rebels.

United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be very cozy with the House of Saud or the murderous al-Khalifas in Bahrain. But the State Department heavily blasted Gaddafi for his "increasingly nationalistic policies in the energy sector"; and also for "Libyanizing" the economy.

The Big G, a wily player, should have seen the writing on the wall. Since prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh was deposed essentially by the Central Intelligence Agency in Iran in 1953, the rule is that you don't antagonize globalized Big Oil. Not to mention the international financial/banking system - promoting subversive ideas such as turning your economy to the benefit of your local population.

If you're pro-your country you are automatically against those who rule - Western banks, mega-corporations, shady "investors" out to profit from whatever your country produces.

Gaddafi not only crossed all these red lines but he also tried to sneak out of the petrodollar; he tried to sell to Africa the idea of a unified currency, the gold dinar (most African countries supported it); he invested in a multibillion dollar project - the Great Man-Made River, a network of pipelines pumping fresh water from the desert to the Mediterranean coast - without genuflecting at the alter of the World Bank; he invested in social programs in poor, sub-Saharan countries; he financed the African Bank, thus allowing scores of nations to bypass, once again, the World Bank and especially the International Monetary Fund; he financed an African-wide telecom system that bypassed Western networks; he raised living standards in Libya. The list is endless...

NATO's agenda of dominating the whole Mediterranean as a NATO lake is as bold as Africom's agenda of becoming Africa's Robocop. The only trouble spots were Libya, Syria and Lebanon - the three countries not NATO members or linked with NATO via myriad "partnerships".

To understand NATO's global Robocop role - legitimized by the UN - one just has to pay attention to the horse's mouth, NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As Tripoli was still being bombed, he said, "If you're not able to deploy troops beyond your borders, then you can't exert influence internationally, and then that gap will be filled by emerging powers that don't necessarily share your values and thinking."

So there it is, out in the open. NATO is a Western high-tech militia to defend American and European interests, to isolate the interests of the emerging BRICS countries and others, and to keep the "natives", be they Africans or Asians, down. The whole lot much easier to accomplish as the scam is disguised by R2P - "responsibility to protect", not civilians, but the subsequent plunder.

Against all these odds, no wonder The Big G was bound for a red card, and to be banned from the game forever...

Why Gaddafi got a red card
Pepe Escobar
9-1-11
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MI01Ak02.html

New Economic Order in Europe

From HuffPo:

The leaders of France and Germany called Tuesday for greater economic discipline and unity among European nations but declined to take immediate financial measures seen by many investors as the only way to halt the continent's spiraling debt crisis.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell, the euro slid against the dollar and key European markets edged down in off-hour trading after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the results of their emergency talks in Paris.

Sarkozy called for a "new economic government" for Europe that would meet at least twice a year with European Union President Herman Van Rompuy as its head, but he offered few other details or indications that the body would have real power.

Merkel and Sarkozy also called for all euro zone nations to enact constitutional amendments requiring balanced budgets. They said they want the process completed by the summer of 2012, but it would almost certainly run into protracted political difficulties in many countries.

Both leaders said the moment was not right to replace 17 government bonds with a single one allowing weaker economies to borrow in cooperation with the powerhouse economies of France and Germany. A growing number of experts are calling for the eurobond as a way to prevent the unaffordable interest rates that have driven Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to seek bailouts from the eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.

New figures show slowing French and German growth, and the German government fears it would face higher borrowing costs and more risks if it had to borrow jointly with financially shaky nations.

"We have exactly the same position on euro bonds," Sarkozy said. "One day we could imagine them, but at the end of a process of European integration, not at the beginning."

The Dow fell as many as 190 points shortly after 1 p.m. in New York, a sign of clear market disappointment with the lack of immediate action.

Merkel and Sarkozy also said they did not want to increase the size of the EU's 440 billion euro rescue fund, which may have to take over a massive, multibillion euro European Central Bank program to support the prices of Spanish and Italian bonds by buying them up on the open market. The ECB spent 22 billion euros ($32 billion) in the first week of the program alone and says it wants to hand off that responsibility in coming months to the rescue fund, or European Financial Stability Facility...

Investors may be concerned about how the euro bloc will put in place what its leaders have suggested and how a proposed tax on financial transactions may effect demand for European assets, said David Gilmore of Foreign Exchange Analytics in Essex, Connecticut.

"On the surface, it sounds very bold, a federal `eurozone,'" Gilmore said. "The practical part still seems, to me anyway, to be a pipe dream."

He said the plan to form a deeper fiscal union among the 17 countries using the euro "made the euro credible," but governments might not want to surrender their rights to set tax and budget policies...

Merkel, Sarkozy Propose Eurozone Government
GREG KELLER and JUERGEN BAETZ
08/16/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/16/merkel-sarkozy-eurozone-government_n_928436.html

Bankers and Fools

Robert Bonomo, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/06/bankers-and-fools.html

After a tense week with world markets teetering on the edge of collapse Angela Merkel finally met with her French counterpart Nicholas Sarkozy and they ended the seven-month chill in their once cozy relationship. According to The Independent, they faced a serious impasse regarding bank haircuts in the "déjà vu all over again" Greek financial crisis. Sarkozy fought tooth and nail to guarantee that the largest holders of Greek debt, the French banks, wouldn’t get a clipping. Merkel made a valiant effort to demand accountability from the banks but she finally caved in, giving great comfort to the second largest holders of Greek debt: the German banks.

According to the Financial Times, French banks are holding $53 billion in Greek debt, Credit Agricole alone is $30 billion invested, while German banks are holding $34 billion. Colloquially speaking, Frau Merkel and Monsieur Sarkozy know who their daddy is.

Follow the Money

One key question is missing from the discussion of the Greek sovereign debt crisis. Imagine a close friend is moaning non-stop about a debt owed to them that looks like it won’t be paid. Worst of all they borrowed the money from someone else in order to lend it! Most attentive and caring friends would make that most indelicate but necessary of inquiries. Who did you borrow the money from?

We are blessed to have a corporate media so polite that they don’t burden us with these embarrassing questions. Where did the French and German banks get the $87 billion to lend the Greeks? They would have you think that these are the deposits of hard working Europeans, small businesses, corporations and maybe even tax revenue from governments. This is not the case. Banks use their assets as reserves against which they either “create” money to lend or borrow "created" money from central banks, in this case, the European Central Bank. When buying government bonds, which supposedly have no risk, they use maximum leverage and actually have no reserve requirements.

As John Maudlin put it:

“Why is Greece important? Because so much of their debt is on the books of European banks. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth. And just a few years ago this seemed like a good thing. The rating agencies made Greek debt AAA, and banks could use massive leverage (almost 40 times in some European banks) and buy these bonds and make good money in the process.”

This means that $1 million in assets for a French bank could have been used as colleteral to borrow up to $40 million from the European Central Bank to buy Greek bonds. And where does the European Centeral Bank get the money? They use a designer mouse from Apple and make a few clicks on a very hip computer. The bank does not lend any of its own money or that of its depositors, though they would certainly have you believe they did.

And What if?

So what happens in the case of default? In the case of default, banking regulations demand that the bank place in reserve the amount of money it loaned out. This maintains the integrity of the money and deters the moral hazard of “printing money”.

Greece has a GDP of around $300 billion and its federal budget deficit is close to $425 billion. How will they ever pay this back if this year alone they will add another $30 billion in debt? This money will never be paid back, but, then again, no one ever worked to earn it. Since it was made out of thin air why not just write it off?

This is the key question that Europe will ask as the austerity measures begin to fail. The problem isn’t that the banks would collapse. It could be arranged so the banks don’t take such a big hit to their reserve requirements. As the Financial Times notes, the examiners can look the other way, as if the loans were not defaulting. The real hit to the banks are the huge profits they will forgo for their shareholders. No one’s money is lost, but the integrity of the banking system would be questioned and the curtain would be pulled on the great banking/political/corporate ponzi scheme. The alternative is a generation of austerity to continue to maintain the extravagant lifestyle of the richest 1% who own most of the equity in the banks. No one will be dying of hunger or begging in the streets if the banks have a few bad years.

A Wise Man

William Lyon Mackenzie King was not only the longest serving prime minister of Canada, but also the longest in the history of the Commonwealth; having been Prime Minister of Canada for 22 years. Mackenzie King had four university degrees and never married.

Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talks of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.
William Lyon Mackenzie King

His mother, Isabella Grace Mackenzie, didn’t raise no fool.

Read more from Robert Bonomo at his blog, Cactus Land, which continues to explore the ideas of his novel, Cactus Land available at Amazon.

Obama, financial war and the elimination of DSK

Thierry Meyssan
28 May 2011
http://www.voltairenet.org/article170083.html

It is impossible to understand the downfall of Dominique Strauss-Khan without linking it to his project for the creation of a new international reserve currency, which was to be launched on 26 May 2011 at the Deauville G-8 summit. The project was paradoxically anticipated as much by the Emerging States as by stateless capital, but rejected by the U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex. Thierry Meyssan exposes the chicanery of the Obama administration to dodge its commitments.

The French were dumbstruck at the arrest in the United States of the most popular political leader of their country, Dominique Strauss Khan. Former Economy Minister, he had become the highest-paid public official in the world (base salary, excluding bonuses and expenses: 461 510 USD) and was, reportedly, about to enter the French presidential race. This affable VIP, reputed for his appetite at the table as well as in bed and often accused of being a political amateur because of the time he dedicated to satisfying his lust for life, has been charged with the precipitous sexual assault on a chamber maid in a Manhattan hotel.

For six days, the French remained glued to their television screens watching in a daze the judicial harassment against a man they considered to be a hopeful alternative to the catastrophic first five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy. DSK’s fall marked the end of their illusions.

The spectacle of this shattered destiny is suggestive of ancient tragedy. The Roman saying: "Arx tarpeia Capitoli proxima" comes to mind: the Tarpeian Rock from which a convicted person was hurled to his death was close to the Capitol, the symbol of power and greatness.

Leaving aside any considerations of his innocence or guilt, the steamrolling of such a high-profile personality can only provoke anguish in the ordinary citizen. If someone like him is unable to defend himself, then how can we hope to succeed if we were to be accused like him?

The rise and the fall

Nevertheless, as a politicized people raised on Machiavellian lessons, without ever having read his works, it didn’t take the French long to start questioning the solidity of the charges brought against their compatriot DSK. According to the opinion polls, 57% didn’t buy the rutting-season story that the U.S. media have taken delight in dishing out. Some started imagining all kinds of manipulation scenarios, while others are asking "cui bono?" (who benefits?).

At that game, the first name that comes to mind is that of Nicolas Sarkozy. It is impossible not to think of him knowing that he became president by pressing charges against his chief rival, Dominique de Villepin, and entangling him in a forgery scandal just as convoluted as the current one. Therefore, why not another plot to move a new competitor out of the way?

Never mind if DSK and Sarkozy have needed each other to prepare the forthcoming international summits, or if they were both subservient to the United States. It is well known that the worst crimes are perpetrated against one’s own friends or even family.

As is happens, the French are unaware of DSK’s ties [1] or, for that matter, Sarkozy’s when they voted for him [2]. The media have never informed them that in the 1990’s, during his political wilderness, he was hired as professor at Stanford University by a certain... Condoleezza Rice. They also don’t know that he and his lieutenants Pierre Moscovici and Jean-Chrisophe Cambadélis were in charge of raising funds for the Socialist Party from the National Endowment for Democracy - a legal CIA front [3]. Nor did they follow his activities and various contracts with Atlanticist think-tanks, such as the German Marshall Fund of the United States [4] or the Bilderberg Group [5]. Finally, they are oblivious about his commitment to integrate France and Europe into a vast transatlantic market dominated by the United States.

Nor do the French know anything about DSK’s close links to Israel. Within the Socialist Party, he steers the Cercle Léon Blum, named after a former Jewish prime minister. The role of this discreet and powerful lobby is to eject from the political scene any individual who is likely to criticize the Zionist project. Thus, it can make heads roll, like that of political scientist Pascal Boniface who highlighted the electorally counter-productive implications of supporting Tel-Aviv in a country where 10% of the population is of Arabic culture. Yet, DSK is very open about it. Without beating around the bush, he asserted: "I deem that every diaspora Jew must support Israel. For that reason, it is important for Jews to take up political responsibilities. In short, in my functions and in my everyday life, in everything I do, I endeavor to make my modest contribution toward the construction of Israel." It’s rather disconcerting from someone who aspires to become president of France. But who cares? He’s so jovial!

However, Dominique Strauss-Khan and his loved ones were spared no humiliation: while kept incommunicado under protective police custody, the New York prosecutor’s office was distributing to the media copies of the detailed indictment.

It contains a clinical description of the alleged crimes: "The defendant engaged in oral sexual conduct and anal sexual conduct with another person by forcible compulsion; the defendant attempted to engage in sexual intercourse with another person by sexual compulsion; the defendant subjected another person to sexual contact by forcible compulsion; the defendant restrained another person; the defendant subjected another person to sexual contact without the latter’s consent; and in that the defendant intentionally, and for no legitimate purpose, forcibly touched the sexual and other intimate parts of another person for the purpose of degrading and abusing such person, and for the purpose of gratifying the defendant’s sexual desire.
The offenses were committed under the following circumstances:

Deponent states and deponent is informed by an individual known to the District Attorney’s office that defendant 1) shut the door to the above location and prevented informant from leaving the above location; 2) grabbed informant’s breasts without consent; 3) attempted to pull down defendant’s pantyhose and forcibly grabbed informant’s vaginal area; 4) forcibly made contact with his penis and informant’s mouth twice; and 5) was able to accomplish the above acts by using actual physical force."

All these juicy details were splashed all over the evening news for days on end before wide-eyed parents just back from work, and before horrified children who buried their noses in their bowl of soup.

The cultural shock

It is difficult to know who was more traumatized: the brilliant economist who was going to save humanity from the financial crisis and has been abruptly relegated to the ranks of an infamous criminal, or the French people who were looking forward to a respite by choosing him as their leader, and have been compelled once again meet head-on the violence of the United States.

In this regard, the French are trying to find excuses for the nature of the Anglo-Saxon judicial system to which they are just beginning to awaken. They had already seen such a parody of justice in their favorite television series, but they never imagined it could actually exist in reality. As for the extra-judicial system, Guantánamo and the secret prisons, they have always preferred not to know. Some commentators have speculated that the harsh treatment at the hands of the police and the first judge denotes a will to treat the powerful and the weak on an equal footing. Yet, surely, they must all be familiar with the works of illustrious sociologists explaining that in this unjust system money is king and that justice may be blindfolded, but is not class blind.

Furthermore, the French unflinchingly went along with the criticisms relayed by the Anglo-American press, laying all the blame on its French counterparts for having failed to investigate Mr. Strauss-Khan’s life of sexual depravity in the name of his right to privacy. And yet - the puritans comment further - a man who ostensibly seduces a women, squeezes or even jostles her is obviously a potential raper. "He that will steal a penny will steal a pound." On its cover, Time Magazine depicts DSK and his peers in the guise of a pig. However, no one has pointed out that the defendant was IMF Managing Director and a Washington D.C. resident for the past 3 years, but whose hidden vices the moralizing Anglo-American press has also failed to dig into.

The accusation against DSK having opened up suspicions, now everyone remembers - albeit somewhat late - that in 2002 DSK had tried to force himself on a beautiful French journalist, Tristane Banon. When she asked him for an interview, he gave her an appointment in a private apartment located in the Marais, a historic district of Paris. He received her in a huge loft, completely unfurnished except for a big bed. Since the beauty refused to submit to the libertine, he bashed her.
Could it be that, in New York, the gentleman was overwhelmed by his own violence and transformed into a criminal?

Nothing seems to point in that direction, all the more since DSK is not a frustrated bachelor. He is married to television star Anne Sinclair, a French top-notch journalist, who abandoned her profession to accompany her husband in his career. The French saw her again during Dominique Strauss-Khan’s court hearings, as beautiful and determined as ever despite the extra years. The grand-daughter of a major art merchant, she sits on a cushy family fortune. Without hesitation, she flew to Paris to pay the one-million dollar bail and provide the court with an additional 5 million in collateral. At that moment, this wealthy woman was prepared to sacrifice everything to rescue her husband from the crushing jaws of United States justice. She was all the more admirable for it; a wife who didn’t hold his escapades against him and who even liked to go with him to the Chandelle, a Paris swingers club.

Any nation worthy of that name would not have endured to see a political figure, who was slated to become president and represent their country, walking handcuffed between two FBI officers, shoved in the back of a car like a thug, and paraded in court shaggy and unshaven. In any other country, people would probably have staged a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy chanting patriotic songs. But not in France. The "Americans" are far too admired. The French look up to them like a rabbit hypnotized by a cobra. And they have a hard time accepting that they are not the navel of the world, that if indeed there was a plot, it was not necessarily hatched on the banks of the Seine but on those of the Potomac.

The confinement

Is DSK guilty of rape or is he victim of a machination? One only has to think in order to answer the question.

The defendant allegedly spent the night with a call-girl, then raped the chambermaid at brunch time before calmly going to have lunch with his daughter, a student at Columbia University. Finally, he is supposed to have boarded his flight, booked several days in advance, bound for Berlin where he was to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel. Comfortably settled in his Air France business class seat, he was arrested ten minutes before takeoff.

According to the cabin crew, the officers of the Special Victims Unit (the same as in the NBC "Law and Order SVU" serial) didn’t delegate the questioning procedure to their airport counterparts, insisting on doing it themselves despite the risk of arriving too late. However, to prevent any warning from reaching DSK, they ordered the cell phone jamming of the zone until their arrival [6]. Now, this kind of jamming operation exceeds the scope of a vice squad. It could only have been ordered by national security services.

As soon as the suspect was placed under police custody, he was cut off from any external contact, with the exception of his lawyers, as prescribed by U.S. law. But when Judge Melissa Jackson moved him into protective custody, he was again cut off from the outside world. With no reason. It was explained that DSK’s detention was warranted for fear he might flee to France, with which Washington did not sign an extradition agreement and which has protected another sexual offender accused of rape, film director Roman Polanski. The decision to isolate him was therefore not taken with the aim of preventing him from influencing the witnesses. Nonetheless, the judge decided to lock him up at Rikers Island, one of the largest prisons in the world which houses 14 000 detainees, and one of the bleakest. A hell on earth. "For his protection", he was assigned to a single cell and kept incommunicado.

The IMF Managing Director was held in confinement for 10 days. During this period the functioning of the international institution was blocked in want of a signature. For 10 days the problems related to the euro and the dollar, Greece’s default, and many others crucial issues were put on standby at the mercy of the police, judges and prison guards.

According to U.S. jurisprudence, considering that he had no criminal record and is domiciled in Washington, DSK should not have been placed in protective custody but should, instead, have been released on bail. He obviously quickly assessed the situation and, through one of his lawyers, sent a letter of resignation to the IMF. On the very next day, against all expectation, a new judge acceded to his request and released him on bail, under house arrest and tight surveillance, pending trial. Indeed, it was no longer necessary to keep him locked up now that the IMF had recovered its freedom to act.

French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde, who made a career in the United States defending the interests of the military-industrial complex [7], is sounded out to succeed the defendant at the helm of the IMF, despite Russia’s and China’s cries of outrage.

Incidentally, DSK’s second lawyer Benjamin Brafman didn’t visit him in prison and was not present at the second court hearing. The star of the New York Bar Association departed precipitously for Israel. Officially, it was to celebrate a religious feast with his family [8]. To claim his fees, Mr. Branfman didn’t simply limit himself to lighting candles on Lag BaOmer, he also must have negotiated to obtain assistance for his client.

The Zhou project

Why were Hollywood-like means deployed to block the IMF during 10 days? There are two possible answers, and they may be linked.

In the first place, on 29 March 2009, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, challenged the predominance of the dollar as reserve currency. Deploring that the objective of economist John Maynard Keynes to create an supranational currency (the Bancor) was not achieved at the end of World War 2, he suggested that the IMF Special Drawing Rights could be used to fulfill this function [9]

At the London G20 summit on 2 April 2009, yielding to pressure, the United States agreed to the tripling of IMF resources and to the issuance by that institution of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) for a value of 250 billion dollars. They also acquiesced to the principle of a Financial Stability Council associating the major emerging countries.

This idea was debated at the G8 summit at L’Aquila (Italy) on 8 July 2009. Pushing the pin further, Russia submitted that the new world currency should be minted rather than being virtual. Dmitry Medvedev, who had a few sample of coins minted, slapped them on the table. One side displays the faces of the eight Heads of State, whereas the flip side bears the motto "Unity in Diversity" [10].

The project was submitted to experts from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Their report, in which Professor Popov of the New Economic School of Moscow took part, was examined on 25 April 2010 by a joint IMF and World Bank meeting [11].

This project should have seen the light of day on 26 May 2011 at the G8 summit in Deauville (France). The dollar would thus have met its demise as the reserve currency against the backdrop of an imminent cessation of payments on the part of the U.S. Federal Government. As for Washington, it would have had to give up financing its super-powerful military apparatus through debt and to start concentrating on its domestic restructuring.

The Libyan dinar is the first (and last?) currency backed by gold and by IMF Special Drawing Rights. In 2000, Colonel Gaddafi had thought of creating a pan-African currency based on gold, but was unable to pursue his idea. Also, in 2009, he had spontaneously availed himself of the Zhou project and adopted it unilaterally for his country.

The spanner in the works

Unfortunately, in the final months of this process, military and political initiatives disrupted the plan. Countries such as Russia and China were double crossed. DSK’s arrest exposes Washington’s bad faith, and shows that its concessions were a only ploy to gain time.

Although the exact details of Dominique Strauss-Khan’s device for the creation of the new currency sustained by IMF Special Drawing Rights remain secret, it would appear that Libya had a key role to play. On an experimental level, the Libyan Central Bank was the first to base its currency, the dinar, on gold and later on SDRs. This aspect is especially important considering that Libya possesses one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, exceeding even that of Russia.

By waging war against Libya, France and the United Kingdom generated a theoretical asset freeze targeting not only the Gaddafi family but also the Libyan state. Worse, Paris and London dispatched HSBC bank executives to Benghazi to set up a rebel Libyan central bank and attempt to grab the national assets [12]. Without knowing whether Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron got carried away by their own hubris or acted on instructions from their bosses in Washington, the fact remains that the fragile edifice developed by Dominique Strauss-Khan has collapsed.

According to our contacts in Tripoli, at the time of his arrest, DSK was headed for Berlin in order to work out a solution with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Afterwards, he and a German envoy were supposed leave to negotiate with Colonel Gaddafi’s representatives, and very possibly with Gaddafi himself considering that his signature was indispensable for unblocking the situation.

We are now witnessing a financial war on an unprecedented scale. While the economic situation of the United States is on the brink and the dollar could rapidly turn into monkey currency, the agreement concluded at the G8 and endorsed by the G20, implemented by the IMF in conjunction with the World Bank and the international banking circles, of which DSK was the architect, has been suspended. The hegemony of the dollar remains intact albeit more artificially than ever. The dollar which the emerging states wanted to resize but on which the U.S.-Israeli industrial-military complex rests its power.

In that context, what is one man’s honor worth?

Thierry Meyssan

French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

French minister resigns after being accused of sexual assault

Georges Tron denies allegations made by two women who worked for him at town hall in Draveil, near Paris Kim Willsher in Paris
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 May 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/29/french-minister-reisgns-accused-sexual-assault


A French minister has resigned from Nicolas Sarkozy's government after he was put under investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting two women who worked for him.

The departure of the civil service minister, Georges Tron – who denies the allegations – was announced by the prime minister, François Fillon, on Sunday.

French prosecutors were in the preliminary stages of investigating accusations of sexual aggression and rape against Tron, whose lawyer, Olivier Schnerb, said were "pure defamation" and "balderdash".

The investigation comes two weeks after the arrest of the former IMF head and Socialist presidential hopeful, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is facing sexual assault charges in New York.

Tron's position became untenable after the foreign minister, Alain Juppé, told a television show that although his colleague was "presumed innocent", he should consider resigning because "government ministers had to be above all suspicion."

The two women, aged 34 and 36, have lodged complaints with the public prosecutor, claiming Tron assaulted them between 2007 and 2010 while they worked at the town hall in Draveil, south of Paris, where he is the mayor.

The women claim the assaults started after Tron, who says he is a qualified reflexologist, offered to give the women foot massages. They say it was the arrest of Strauss-Kahn that encouraged them to come forward. "When I see that a little chambermaid is capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I told myself I did not have the right to stay silent," one of them told a French newspaper.

"Other women have perhaps suffered what I have suffered. I have to help them. We have to smash this omerta."

The Strauss-Kahn affair has triggered soul-searching in France about sex and power. After the shock and disbelief of the arrest of the man nicknamed the Great Seducer, French pundits have been questioning whether strict privacy laws and alleged media complicity have enabled politicians and celebrities to get away with unacceptable behaviour. Sunday's edition of the Journal du Dimanche wrote of a "before and an after DSK" (as Strauss-Kahn is known in France).

Strauss-Kahn had already been forced to apologise for a "lack of judgment" after an affair with a junior colleague at the IMF shortly after he took up his post in 2007.

Tristane Banon, a journalist, claimed in 2007 that Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in 2002, but her claims were largely ignored by the mainstream French press and her mother, a Socialist politician and friend of the Strauss-Kahn family persuaded her not to go to the police.

Last week a women's association said one of the women, claiming she had been attacked by Tron, had come forward in November with a "credible" complaint against the 53-year-old minister.

In a statement, the European Association Against Violence Against Women at Work said: "Her credibility is not in question from our point of view."

Tron claims the women have a vendetta against him after being sacked from their jobs. "I am not naive – they are trying to echo an affair taking place the other side of the Atlantic," he told Reuters last week. In an interview prior to his resignation, he said: "The accusations against me are fantasy."

IMF chief feared political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m

IMF chief 'feared political opponent would pay a woman more than $1m to allege rape'
Peter Allen
16th May 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387625/IMF-chief-Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-feared-political-enemy-pay-woman-allege-rape.html

Dominique Strauss-Kahn feared that one of his political opponents would pay a woman more than $1million to say he raped her, it emerged today.

The extraordinary revelation emerged in Paris as the International Monetary Fund head remained in a New York police cell accused of launching a sex attack on a hotel maid.

A writer in the French capital has also come forward to say that the 62-year-old attempted to rape her a decade ago.

But as Strauss-Kahn faced a 15-year prison sentence - which would signify the end of his ambition to become French president next year - conspiracy theories abounded.

Liberation, the left-wing daily newspaper, published details on off-the-record comments made by Strauss-Kahn as recently as April 28th.

Discussing his plans to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy as Socialist candidate for the presidency in 2012, he said he imagined ‘a woman who had been raped in a car park and who was offered between €500,000 and €1,000,000 to make up such a story.’

Because he was the clear favourite to beat Mr Sarkozy, Strauss-Kahn feared he would be subjected to a smear campaign by the President and his Interior Minister, Glaude Gueant.

Such theories were bolstered by the fact that the first person to break the news of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest was an activist in Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party – who apparently knew about the scandal before it happened.

Jonathan Pinet, a politics student, tweeted the news just before the New York Police Department made it public, although he said that he simply had a ‘friend’ working at the Sofitel where the attack was said to have happened.

The first person to re-tweet Mr Pinet was Arnaud Dassier, a spin doctor who had previously publicised details of multi-millionaire Strauss-Kahn’s luxurious lifestyle in a bid to dent his left wing credentials.

Strauss-Kahn could just as easily been set up by rivals inside the IMF, as well as by rivals within the French political establishment.

Michelle Sabban, a senior councillor for the greater Paris region and a Strauss-Kahn loyalist said: ‘I am convinced it is an international conspiracy.’

She added: ‘It's the IMF they wanted to decapitate, not so much the Socialist primary candidate.

‘It's not like him. Everyone knows that his weakness is seduction, women. That's how they got him.’

Even some of Strauss-Kahn’s rivals said they could not believe the news. ‘It is totally hallucinatory,’ said centrist Dominique Paille.

‘If it is true, this would be a historic moment, but in the negative sense, for French political life. I hope that everyone respects the presumption of innocence. I cannot manage to believe this affair.’

And Henri de Raincourt, minister for overseas co-operation in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, added: ‘We cannot rule out the thought of a trap.’

Referring to recent allegations that Strauss-Kahn was chauffered around Paris in a Porsche and wore 20,000 plus suits, Mr De Raincourt added: ‘I note that this has happened just after the affair of the car and the suit in a short space of time.

‘I am not ruling anything out. If this turns out to have been a trap, let me tell you that it would not be to the credit of those who set it.’

G20 moves world a step closer to global currency

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/5096524/The-G20-moves-the-world-a-step-closer-to-a-global-currency.html

The G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency
The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
03 Apr 2009

A single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order.

"We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity," it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.

In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global "quantitative easing". In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.

It has been a good summit for the IMF. Its fighting fund for crises is to be tripled overnight to $750bn. This is real money.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director, said in February that the world was "already in Depression" and risked a slide into social disorder and military conflict unless political leaders resorted to massive stimulus.

He has not won everything he wanted. The spending plan was fudged. While Gordon Brown talked of $5 trillion in global stimulus by 2010, this is mostly made up of packages already under way.

But Mr Strauss-Kahn at least has resources fit for his own task. He will need them. The IMF is already bailing out Pakistan, Iceland, Latvia, Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Bosnia and Romania. This week Mexico became the first G20 state to ask for help. It has secured a precautionary credit line of $47bn.

Gordon Brown said it took 15 years for the world to grasp the nettle after Great Crash in 1929. "This time I think people will agree that it has been different," he said.

President Barack Obama was less dramatic. "I think we did OK," he said. Bretton Woods in 1944 was a simpler affair. "Just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy, that's an easy negotiation, but that's not the world we live in."

There will be $250bn in trade finance to kick-start shipping after lenders cut back on Letters of Credit after September's heart attack in the banking system. Global trade volumes fell at annual rate of 41pc from November to January, according to Holland's CPB institute – the steepest peacetime fall on record.

Euphoria swept emerging markets yesterday as the first reports of the IMF boost circulated. Investors now know that countries like Mexico can arrange a credit facility able to cope with major shocks – and do so on supportive terms, rather than the hair-shirt deflation policies of the old IMF. Fear is receding again.

The Russians had hoped their idea to develop SDRs as a full reserve currency to challenge the dollar would make its way on to the agenda, but at least they got a foot in the door.

There is now a world currency in waiting. In time, SDRs are likely evolve into a parking place for the foreign holdings of central banks, led by the People's Bank of China. Beijing's moves this week to offer $95bn in yuan currency swaps to developing economies show how fast China aims to break dollar dependence.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the summit had achieved more than he ever thought possible, and praised Gordon Brown for pursuing the collective interest as host rather than defending "Anglo-Saxon" interests. This has a double-edged ring, for it suggests that Mr Brown may have traded pockets of the British financial industry to satisfy Franco-German demands. The creation of a Financial Stability Board looks like the first step towards a global financial regulator. The devil is in the details.

Hedge funds deemed "systemically important" will come under draconian restraints. How this is enforced will determine whether Mayfair's hedge-fund industry – 80pc of all European funds are there – will continue to flourish.

It seems that hedge funds have been designated for ritual sacrifice, even though they played no more than a cameo role in the genesis of this crisis. It was not they who took on extreme debt leverage: it was the banks – up to 30 times in the US and nearer 60 times for some in Europe that used off-books "conduits" to increase their bets. The market process itself is sorting this out in any case – brutally – forcing banks to wind down their leverage. The problem right now is that this is happening too fast.

But to the extent that this G20 accord makes it impossible for the "shadow banking" to resurrect itself in the next inevitable cycle of risk appetite, it may prevent another disaster of this kind.

The key phrase is "new rules aimed at avoiding excessive leverage and forcing banks to put more money aside during good times." This is more or less what the authorities agreed after the Depression. Complacency chipped away at the rules as the decades passed. It is the human condition, and we can't change that.

Sarkozy warned of ‘class war’

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e3dfd20-1401-11de-9e32-0000779fd2ac.html

Sarkozy warned of ‘class war’
By Peggy Hollinger in Paris
March 18 2009

France faces a “class war” that could undermine President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reform efforts and spark a period of damaging labour unrest, one of the country’s most prominent business leaders has warned.

In an interview with the Financial Times as France braced for its second national strike in less than two months, Maurice Lévy, head of Publicis, said “people are really angry” over the country’s growing economic hardship and costly bank rescues.

Mr Lévy criticised the government for fanning the discontent. The boss of the advertising group said ministers had failed to explain adequately why the state had bailed out banks while refusing to help consumers with new tax breaks or wage rises.

Unions have promised another record turnout for Thursday’s general strike, with more protests planned across the country than in January when up to 2.5m people came out on to the streets.

The public mood has worsened, with protests becoming militant amid factory closures and as the government struggles to revive the economy.

“No one understood that the vast majority [of bank support] was in guarantees and in reality the money was not yet spent. People were told the country was bankrupt and suddenly there was €340bn available for these greedy people. On top of that they are distributing bonuses. We have another class war,” said Mr Lévy.

Claude Bébéar, the honorary chairman of insurance group Axa and seen as the elder statesman of French capitalism, warned in a separate FT interview that the country risked becoming engaged in “a struggle, with each side seeking to take advantage of the other to strengthen its position”.

He urged the government, unions and employers “to play a collective game”.

Many business leaders fear that, as militancy grows, the government will make concessions on its reform programme. Mr Sarkozy has already backed down in a long-running dispute with academics and students over university reform. Medef, the employers’ group, is worried that concessions made after the January strike could impose new constraints on companies.

Mr Lévy said further compromises could encourage more protests. “Each compromise, even if reasonable, is misinterpreted as a grand victory by the strikers and the opposition,” he said.

“We have always known that reform has to be done very, very quickly. If it is not done quickly it ends in conflict,” he said.

Sarkozy Faces His Biggest Protest Yet

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=ax_BnwxxAp6I

Sarkozy Faces His Biggest Protest Yet on French Economic Plan
By Helene Fouquet

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- President Nicolas Sarkozy faced the biggest public protest since his election in 2007 as more than a million people marched across France complaining about his government’s economic policies.

The police said 1.1 million people demonstrated, while Confederation Generale du Travail, the second-biggest French labor union, put the total at 2.5 million. This is the biggest protest since the 2006 marches against a disputed youth-work law that forced the government to scrap it.

The nation’s eight largest unions joined forces in the strike, saying Sarkozy’s 26 billion-euro ($34.4 billion) economic-stimulus package is inadequate. They want the government do more to counter rising unemployment and weakening purchasing power as the French economy enters its first recession in 16 years.

“The target is won, thanks to the massive presence of private sector workers,” Francois Chereque, head of Confederation Francaise Democratique du Travail, France’s biggest union, said at the end of the Paris demonstration, adding that today “is the biggest workers’ action day in about 20 years,” according to his press office.

The strike resulted in train delays, closed schools and jammed roads as more than a million public sector workers and thousands of others from companies including France Telecom SA and Renault SA took part in the work stoppage.

Bank of France

Participation in the strike today ranged from 25 percent at the Bank of France to more than 60 percent in primary schools. The Public Service Ministry reported that 26 percent of its staff walked out, or about 900,000 people. That’s more than the 20 percent strikers in November 2007.

“This crisis imposes on the government a duty to listen, to engage in dialogue,” Sarkozy said in an e-mailed statement in response to the day’s events. “The concern is legitimate” as citizens “are losing their jobs” he said, adding that he plans to meet with labor unions and employers next month to discuss reforms planned for 2009.

The Paris march ended with violence at the Garnier opera square. Riot police fired tear gas as protesters burned trash bins. CGT said 300,000 walked in the capital city and authorities reported 65,000 demonstrators.

While France has a history of street protests, the global financial crisis has sparked similar demonstrations and unrest in countries from China and Greece to Iceland. France’s most disruptive transport strike in over a decade in November 2007 cost as much as 400 million euros a day, according to finance ministry estimates.

Popular Support

About 69 percent of the French people backed the strike, according to a poll by CSA-Opinion for newspaper Le Parisien on Jan. 25. Forty-six percent support the strike, while 23 percent “sympathize,” with the union call, Le Parisien said. Of those interviewed, 12 percent were opposed or hostile to the strike.

It’s the first time in Sarkozy’s presidency that a “social movement” has had such public approval, Stephane Rozes, head of CSA-Opinion told the daily.

Ten percent of the flights at Paris’s Charles-de-Gaulle airport were canceled and third of those at the city’s second airport Orly were scrapped. In Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, most public transport was canceled. The aviation authority said flight operation will return to normal tomorrow.

Output at French power plants operated by Electricite de France, Europe’s biggest electricity producer, fell by 14,000 megawatts because of strikes, a “record amount,” according to the CGT union.

To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at Hfouquet1@bloomberg.net.

Sarkozy under attack after EU president proposal

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/3254628/Nicolas-Sarkozy-under-attack-after-EU-president-proposal.html

Nicolas Sarkozy under attack after EU president proposal
Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of making a power grab to install himself as president of the European Union, a post that no longer exists after the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty in June.
25 Oct 2008

The French president, who holds the EU's rotating six month presidency until the end of December, has dominated the international stage following the Russian invasion of Georgia in August and the global financial crisis in recent weeks.

But he has dismayed Brussels diplomats and angered the Czech Republic, which takes over the EU presidency in January, by suggesting that countries belonging to the euro, with an invitation extended to Britain, should form an emergency "economic government" with President Sarkozy at its head.

"What is important is that the impetus, the energy of the French EU presidency remains," said Jean-Pierre Jouyet, French Europe minister, in defence of the plan.

"Do we want to return to business as usual? Or do we want to capitalise on the impetus?"

Alexandr Vondra, the Czech vice-prime minister, has criticised Mr Sarkozy's plans to extend his time at the head of the EU into next year.

"Any speculations on extension of the current presidency are groundless and unacceptable," he said.

"Nobody can take the presidency away from the Czech Republic. There are formal rules of the game which cannot be changed without the consent of everyone. No such new rules in the EU primary law have been approved."

The Lisbon Treaty created the post of the EU president, a job for which, until Ireland's referendum rejection in June, Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, was the front-runner.

One Brussels diplomat, from a small EU member state, said: "Mr Sarkozy is trying to become, by the back door, President of the EU. It also seems he wants to be President of France at the same time."

Mr Sarkozy has proposed regular summits of the EU's 15 euro-zone countries, meeting in a series of 2009 summits of heads and state and government, to deal with a looming recession and the economic fall out of the financial crisis.

Gordon Brown, the leader of the EU's second biggest ecoomy, would also be invited to attend the meetings, following his presence at the first ever Eurogroup summit in Paris on October 12.

Mr Vondra admitted that non-euro members, such as the Czech Republic, "will not be able to prevent" the summits but has attacked the move as divisive.

"It would not be a wise move but one which would divide EU rather then unify it. Bypass is a method used to cure an heart attack, but is not a suitable method for cooperation within the EU. The EU hopefully, does not suffer from heart attacks," he said.

The French plan also risks a serious rift with Germany because Berlin is a staunch defender of Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister and finance minister of Luxembourg, who currently chairs meetings of Eurogroup economic ministers.

A German government spokesman said: "The natural chairman of such a group would be the Luxembourg Prime Minister and Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker."

EU diplomats have suggested that Mr Sarkozy is trying to "soap the plank" for Mr Juncker by accusing Luxembourg's banking secrecy rules as constituting a tax haven.

"France is not a greater example of financial morality than Luxembourg," he said.

E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p04s01-woeu.html

from the March 27, 2008 edition
E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet
The European Union meets Friday to discuss ties to China after the unrest in Tibet.
By Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Paris

If the government of China hopes the world will go for its line on Tibet and the nefarious Dalai Lama and his purported "clique" – Europe isn't buying it.

The response to the Tibetan crisis in London, Paris, and Berlin, rather, is a call for "dialogue" between China and the exiled Tibetan leader, and"restraint" by Beijing.

A boycott of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games is being discussed as a leverage point in Austria, Belgium, Britain, and France – to be determined by how China handles the frustrations of its Tibetan minority.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has "left open the option" of boycotting the ceremony, Germany has blocked talks with China on economic development, and Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, says that Tibet demonstrations will be authorized as the Olympic torch is carried through London on April 6.

Prince Charles, a friend of the Dalai Lama, had already decided in January not to attend the opening ceremony, he said, in a letter to a human rights group.

Europeans have long had a fascination with and sympathy for the Himalayan region and its Buddhist spiritual traditions – and the Dalai Lama is a frequent visitor to the Continent.

This Friday, Europe's foreign ministers meet in Slovenia, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, to adopt a common position on relations with Beijing and "the suffering of Tibet," as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner describes it.

The question in Slovenia is how to balance appreciation for the progress China has made with concern about the heavy handed tactics of an unelected government that has long eschewed any dialogue with those disagreeing with it. Most European states also have significant business interests in China.

While no European Union state is preparing to boycott the 2008 Games – "Let's not be more Tibetan than the Dalai Lama," who did not advocate boycott, says Mr. Kouchner – there is a general revulsion at the scenes out of Tibet, and at what is seen as an overheated Chinese propaganda effort to demonize the Dalai Lama and hold him responsible for violence.

In a clear rebuke to the Chinese position on Dalai Lama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to meet the spiritual leader in May, and the Dalai Lama was invited to speak at a conference in Nantes, France, during the games in August.

As the British Foreign Office issued a human rights report critical of China this week, Mr. Miliband said, "There needs to be mutual respect between all communities and sustained dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities."

On May 22, the Dalai Lama will give a speech at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

On Wednesday Robert Menard, general secretary of Reporters Sans Frontières in Paris, the journalistic watchdog group, stated that Mr. Sarkozy should boycott the opening if China does not release 30 political prisoners who are on the lists of nearly every human rights group, and if foreign correspondents are continued to be banned from working in Tibet.

Mr. Menard's group raced to unfurl a Tibetan flag at the opening ceremony of the games in Athens this week while a Chinese official was speaking – an act widely criticized in the journalistic community, which has depended on RSF to report on press violations.

Prior to the China-Tibet dissatisfaction in Europe, many protest groups here demanded that China stop its support of the Sudanese government, widely regarded as a main culprit in the starvation and chaos in Darfur. The phrase "Genocide Olympics" has been used in Europe among human rights groups to describe the twinning of the Games with China's policy toward Sudan.

'9/11 attacks made up,' says French Oscar-winner

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html

'9/11 attacks made up,' says French best actress Oscar-winner
By PETER ALLEN
2nd March 2008

Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard has accused America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks
Actress Marion Cotillard sparked a political row yesterday after accusing America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks.

The 32-year-old French actress, who received an Oscar last month for her performance as singer Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, openly questioned the truth behind the terrorist atrocity in an interview broadcast on a French website.

"I think we're lied to about a number of things," Cotillard said, singling out the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of the US making up horror stories for political ends.

Referring to the two passenger jets being flown into the Twin Towers, Cotillard said:

"We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They [sic] was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."

She added that the towers, planned in the early Sixties, were an outdated "money-sucker" that would have cost more to modernise than to rebuild altogether, which is why they were destroyed.

She said: "It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them."

Cotillard's stardom and increased earning power looked assured following her Oscar win.

But after her outburst, in which she also queried the 1969 Moon landings, a successful future in Hollywood appears to be in jeopardy.

She said: "Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."

Cotillard, who was born and brought up in Paris, made the comments on Paris Première - Paris Dernière, a programme broadcast a year ago.

At the time her remarks were largely ignored, but their appearance yesterday on the French magazine website Marianne2 comes at a time when Cotillard's profile is sky-high.

She is shortly due to fly to Chicago to star alongside Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, a gangster movie expected to be her first big money-spinner.

Cotillard's film career began in Luc Besson's 1998 film Taxi - a huge hit in France but less so around the world.

She is slowly becoming a household name in France, in a list most recently topped by her close friend Audrey Tautou and previously by women such as Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot.
But Cotillard, who lives with actor and director Guillaume Canet, frequently tells interviewers she has no interest in money or prestige.

Denying that she had any kind of "Anglo-Saxon ambition", she said she prefers to "choose roles which suit me".

Despite her low-key image, Cotillard is an environmental activist who once worked as a spokesman for Greenpeace.

News of her anti-Americanism comes as Franco-American relations appear to be thawing, following Paris's refusal to show support for the invasion of Iraq.

President Nicolas Sarkozy insists he is pro-American, even supporting so-called "Anglo-Saxon" economic reforms.

Sarkozy cooking up a lethal concoction

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2907.shtml

Would-be master chef Sarkozy appears to be cooking up a lethal concoction
By Eric Walberg
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Feb 1, 2008

There is no question that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is a master political manipulator. On the domestic front he trumped both left and right, bringing Socialists into his cabinet, setting them at each others’ throats. At the same time, showing his true colours, he moved quickly to confront the unions and students over early retirement, probationary work guarantees, university places for all who want them.

Note how his “reforms” are all about taking away rights, not giving people more. He also cleverly borrowed a soupçon of Le Pen’s anti-Arab jingoism for his broth.

In a recent debate between Marine Le Pen, vice president of the National Front of France and heir to her notorious father, and Tariq Ramadan, the Egyptian-Swiss intellectual, grandson of founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Hassan Al-Banna, dubbed the Muslim Martin Luther, both agreed that Sarkozy and his ilk pose the biggest threat to Europe’s social fabric. Le Pen grumbled that they steal arguments and votes from the NF; Ramadan complained that they make Le Pen’s ideas acceptable to the average voters.

Ex-Mossad agent Sarko is able to piggy-back on the Zionist stranglehold in European intellectual life to cow the likes of Le Pen into dropping their anti-Jewish rhetoric and focus their racist instincts on Muslims. At the same time, he is able to build on the Thatcherite legacy to undermine the welfare state. In less than a year in office, he has thrown together this poisonous stew and serves it up as his new programme to meet the demands of 21st century France.

Ramadan is one of the few media personalities who is given a chance to counter this slide towards a Euro-Reich, arguing that forcing Muslim immigrants to abandon their traditions, capitulating to the likes of Sarko, merely reinforces racism. “What we need is a new narrative, a new ‘we,’ a mutlicoloured, multicultural European identity. Europeans need to psychologically integrate that into their worldview.” This is light years from the subtle but inherently racist project that Sarko is busy trying to implement. By the way, he is not always subtle, as his hate-filled reference to Arabs as scum when minister of interior in Jacques Chirac’s cabinet revealed.

On the international scene, Sarko has been even busier, if that’s possible, despite the lack of any clear foreign policy programme in his election campaign. In addition to his reputation as a latter-day Tartuffe, Sarkozy is also being called a reincarnation of Pétain, the general who governed Nazi-occupied France from 1939-45, allowing the Germans (read: Americans) to carry out their imperial agenda without any French resistance. This rather startling parallel of current European politics with the 1930s has also surfaced, of all places, in the Czech Republic, where citizens are strongly against one of Sarko’s pet schemes -- to tear Kosovo away from Serbia, seeing it as a reenactment of the Munich agreement of 1938, when Britain served up Sudetenland to the Nazis, which was completely illegal not to mention immoral. Strikingly, Russia played and is now playing the role of the only major power to oppose such submission to the imperial bully du jour.

So far, opposition to the present world bully is weak. While France, Germany and, with some delay, Spain refused to tow the line on Iraq, the election of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and now Sarkozy has undone this feeble protest. However, Russia’s resistance to US world plans has begun to gain respect around the world, even in once hostile Eastern Europe, with Poland and Bulgaria being the latest to begin thawing their relations with Russia, responding to popular pressure, despite unremitting anti-Russia US/European media.

One startling development -- remember, Sarko’s been at the helm of state less than a year -- is either a pièce de résistance or a recipe for disaster, depending on your culinary tastes. During a visit 15 January to the UAE, he unveiled his plan to set up France’s first permanent naval base in the Gulf, just across from Iran. The base will be built in Abu Dhabi, and is intended to put France in the big league alongside the US in the Middle East. The agreement is a “sign to all that France is participating in the stability of this region of the world,” Sarko told reporters. “France responds to its friends. France and the Emirates signed a reciprocal defence accord in 1995. Our friends from the Emirates asked that a base with 400 personnel be opened.” Earlier accords were signed with the threat of Iraq under Saddam Hussein in mind; today it is Iran that is the bête-noire, awaiting invasion by the US and France, to be served up as Sarko’s latest cordon bleu monstrosity. Or so this megalomaniac imagines in his wild fantasies.

The closest French military base to the Gulf is in Djibouti, a former French colony on the Red Sea. That base will be scaled back as a result of the new one. “This is quite a revolution,” said an anonymous French government official. "We are no longer in our historic sphere of influence. Now we’re in a country we never colonised.” Out with the old imperialism, in with the new.

Does he need a reminder about the bloody wars for Algerian and Vietnamese independence? Dien Bien Phu, anyone? How clever -- arm Hussein to the teeth (good for the French arms industry), frighten his UAE neighbours into giving him bases, then use them to attack Iran. Is this really happening?

It is in this context that we must consider his supposedly enlightened offer to compliant Arab states to provide nuclear energy cooperation. The Emirates will soon start construction on a $6 billion nuclear reactor with the generous assistance of France’s EDF. Egypt has been offered a similar radioactive white elephant. Another brilliant coup -- bring coals to Newcastle and sell them for big bucks. In the land of the eternal sun, floating on a sea of oil, get your “friends” to pay you billions of euros to build radioactive furnaces which produce eternal waste. The quintessential snake-oil salesman. I rest my case.

Quelle affreux. There are a few cracks in his many dishes, however. His inimitable ex-wife Cecilia did her level best to stab him in the back, leaving him very publicly at a crucial moment in his political intrigues -- her stand-up of not one but two US presidents at Kennebunkport last autumn is the stuff of legend. She recently published tell-all memoirs revealing his 4 a.m. Karaoke and booze-laced shenanigans with ladies of the night while France was burning, the result of his stand-off with the unions. He has shown his inner Tartuffe more than once on his numerous frantic visits to Russia, America and Africa. He was forced to flip-flop on his plan to scuttle the 35-hour work week, one minute saying it was toast; the next, the bedrock of the state’s understanding with labour.

Despite a flurry of appointments and speeches about a new relationship with Africa, demanding less corruption and more democracy, etc., there is little likelihood that his southern neighbours will pay any attention to him. His diplomatic coup of saving Bulgarian nurses in Libya and of retrieving adoption agents kidnapping Chadian children left him with more egg on his face than on his platter. As a cook he is just too ambitious, introducing spices and turning up the flame in a seemingly chaotic manner as he tries to win approval.

And just as he is able to manipulate liberal left and chauvinist right to forge an unholy alliance and pursue his Petainesque neocon-neoliberalism, he is stirring up leftists, true French patriots and anti-neocon conservatives into a new French résistance.

Pétain or Tartuffe? Whatever he is, we are sure to be in for more indigestion. Let’s hope that’s all.

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at www.geocities.com/walberg2002.