The former International Monetary Fund director and once French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a court in Lille on Tuesday that he did not have the “frenetic sexual activity” attributed to him because he “had other things to do . . . I was trying to save the world from economic castrophe”.
Strauss-Kahn said he met his friends from Lille and the prostitutes they hired only “four times a year for three years”. He is listed in court documents as having participated in 20 orgies between late 2006 and May 13th, 2011, the eve of his arrest on charges of assaulting a hotel maid in Manhattan.
Judge Bernard Lemaire noted that Strauss-Kahn had been "one of the most important people in the world".
“In any case, people thought so,” Strauss-Kahn said. “A lot of people wanted to please me.”
Aggravated pimping
Strauss-Kahn has been charged with “aggravated pimping”. With 12 co-accused, he risks up to 10 years in prison and a €1.5 million fine if convicted. On the first of three days in the dock, he insisted he was “not in any way an organiser” of what he called “
soirées
libertines
” or “recreation sessions”.
“I never suspected there were prostitutes at any of the parties I participated in,” Strauss-Kahn asserted repeatedly.
"When a pretty young woman in her 20s gives herself to a man like that, it's not libertinage," said Jade, a former prostitute who participated in three orgies with Strauss-Kahn. When Judge Lemaire asked Strauss-Kahn if he really believed he was "irresistibly attractive" to women, Strauss-Kahn snorted with laughter. "Things other than one's physique please women," he said. "Social position."
The first time Jade was hired to “service” Strauss-Kahn in 2009, she did not know who he was. “Then one day I saw him on television. It was him but he had clothes on.” Strauss-Kahn could be seen laughing in the front row of the courtroom.
Mounia, a Moroccan-born prostitute, was hired by David Roquet for a party at the Murano hotel in Paris in the summer of 2010. She sobbed as she recounted sex with Strauss-Kahn.
Strauss-Kahn initiated what Mounia called “an unnatural, animal practice”. Although she had had many partners, “I don’t do such things,” she said. Asked if Strauss-Kahn noticed her distress, Mounia said, “I think so. I was very upset. It was his smile that struck me. He seemed to be enjoying it immensely. It was brutal, because he didn’t stop.”
Referring to afternoon orgies at the Murano described by Jade and Mounia, Strauss-Kahn said “We did not live the same scenes . . . At least we don’t remember them the same way. What I experienced was for the most part friendly and playful.”
Libertine protocol
The prostitutes cited the lack of sexual foreplay as evidence that Strauss-Kahn knew their true professions. “For the preliminaries, it’s true,” Strauss-Kahn said. In
libertinage
“things go fairly quickly”. Did he often have sex with women he didn’t know? Judge Lemaire asked. “In
libertinage
, that is frequent,” Strauss-Kahn replied. “In fact, that’s the whole point of it.”
Strauss-Kahn disputed allegations by prostitutes that he was reluctant to use condoms, saying: “If I had unprotected sex with women I don’t know, I’d have been dead a long time ago.”
In all of the sex parties organised by his friends from Lille, Strauss-Kahn said, "I never had the impression that anyone wanted anything other than to party. I like sex. I enjoy sex. Having sex with prostitutes is not my idea of fun, because I want it to be a fete – before, during and after. With prostitutes, there is no before and no after."
Strauss-Kahn gave a second reason for his self-proclaimed aversion to prostitutes: “Prostitutes have a hard life and they are susceptible to pressure from pimps and police. They’re much too dangerous.”
Asked whether he had not taken great risks by participating in so many "soirées libertines", Strauss-Kahn replied: "I always considered that everyone has the right to the private life they wish. Was it a risk? Obviously, yes . . . I always thought the risk of frequenting prostitutes was 10 times higher. I still think so."
Strauss-Kahn seemed bored, weary or disdainful of proceedings, but also totally confident.
Trial publicity
He was forced to listen to the troubles of the little people whose lives collided with his own. Roquet, a former executive in a public works company, choked back sobs as he told of his new profession as a handyman earning €2,000 per month. Jade said she’d just put her two children, age 13 and 14, on a plane to a destination 3,000km away, to spare them publicity from the trial.
Strauss-Kahn earned €2.4 million in 2014, as a consultant to governments including Russia and Serbia. He receives €10,000 a month in pensions from the French government and the IMF.
