Dominique Strauss-Kahn's spectacular arrest on serious sexual assault charges is an unprecedented scandal in the French presidential race. It has stunned the left, disgusted the right and thrown the 2012 election campaign wide open.
DSK had been consistently predicted to trounce Nicolas Sarkozy and all other contenders in the presidential election next April and May. The economist and former Socialist finance minister was expected to announce his candidacy at the end of June. He was tipped to win the Socialist party primary race in October and take on the record-breakingly unpopular Sarkozy.
Whatever the outcome of the US investigation into the alleged sex attack, Strauss-Kahn's hopes for the 2012 presidency are almost certainly over. French voters are largely immune to politicians' sex lives, which they consider private. But allegations of sexual assault and attempted rape are of a different order, pollsters warned.
The Socialist party leader, Martine Aubry, described the news as a "thunderbolt". The Socialists have time to push another candidate, but it will exacerbate existing tensions. The frontrunner is now François Hollande, the jovial former party leader with social democrat tendencies who had already scored a surprise hit in the polls by styling himself as an "ordinary guy" against Strauss-Kahn's ivory tower image. His weak points are a poor record as party leader and a lack of government experience. Hollande's former partner, Ségolène Royal, already beaten once by Sarkozy, still insists on standing in the primaries but she is polling low.
The great unknown is Aubry herself, daughter of the former head of the European commission Jacques Delors. She polls well and many of the party's old guard would like to see her run. But a host of other Socialist faces may now mount challenges, complicating things further.
The Socialist favourites, including Royal and Hollande, were careful not to start mud-slinging against each other yesterday and to respect Strauss-Kahn's presumption of innocence. Hollande called it simply "terrible news".
Strauss-Kahn's lieutenants insisted that the charges of alleged brutal sexual assault bore no resemblance to the man they knew. Some were plain about Strauss-Kahn's well-known reputation for seduction, but suggested this could have been a plot. The Socialist MEP Gilles Savary said "everyone knows Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a libertine" but warned that nothing had been ruled out, including the possibility that the New York allegations were a trap.
Until now, the 2012 race against Sarkozy had been seen as an open goal for the Socialists, if only they could stop fighting each other. Now potential new centrist candidates could benefit. The anti-globalisation extreme left will undoubtedly profit, and the big fear is a fragmentation of the leftwing vote. It risks a nightmare repeat of 2002 when too many leftwing contenders split the vote, allowing the extreme right Jean-Marie Le Pen to knock the Socialists out of the final round.
If the Socialists are eliminated from the May 2012 final round and Sarkozy faces the Front National's Marine Le Pen, the president will be assured a second term.
