Wrath for Dominique Strauss-Kahn

And all along, we thought it was just the IMF's debt-restructuring plans that were predatory ...

In an instant, the sex-assault charges pressed against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, cast a pall over one of the world's biggest financial institutions and drastically altered France's political scene. The Wall Street Journal, noting the many important international interests involved, singles out a trial as the only means to clear the air. (DSK, as he is known in France, has indicated he will plead not guilty.) “For his sake, for the sake of his accuser, and for the integrity of American justice, the world needs to see that this case is prosecuted transparently and well,” the editorialists write, trying to supress a hint of glee at the downfall of a man whose economic agenda – bailouts for bankrupt nations, in particular – rubbed the free-market paper the wrong way.

Over in France, the charges of committing a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, and unlawful imprisonment obliterate any chance that the Socialist party will unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy, paving a way for his re-election or a victory for the far-right National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, predicts Pierre Haski in The Guardian. “Before this, DSK had everything going for him: a discredited outgoing president, an opposition party in search of a saviour, and an economic context that made him the ideal man to lead a European country in the midst of a financial storm,” says Haski. All of a sudden, an election primed to put the left back in the presidency next year has tilted far to the right. "The impact of an event in a New York hotel room, of which we still know very little, is already huge.”

Anne-Elisabeth Moutet of The Telegraph remarks that DSK “will go down in history as the first French politician whose career imploded because of a sex scandal, not a financial one.” Reactions in Paris “were split between sheer disbelief, suspicions of entrapment and all-too-many knowing shrugs,” as DSK's well-known womanizing past finally seems to have caught up with him. If any good comes of this, it's that France's libidinous politicians now know the limits of their constituents' tolerance for sexual indiscretion.