French novelist files sexual assault complaint against Strauss-Kahn
A young French writer has gone from words to action, filing a sexual assault complaint against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was just recently accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York.
The lawyer for 31-year old writer Tristane Banon announced that on her behalf he had filed a formal complaint with prosecutors, asking them to open an investigation.Banon claims that Strauss-Kahn attempted to rape her in his apartment in 2003, during an interview.The writer said that she had described the incident in an autobiographic novel, "The Trapezist," which published in 2006.Banon was reportedly dissuaded from reporting the incident by her mother, who feared for her career.Strauss-Kahn has labeled Banon’s account “imaginary” and warned that he would file a slander complaint against her, the Associated Press reported.Strauss-Kahn was recently released from house arrest after a New York court announced a review of his case triggered by new revelations challenging the alleged victim’s credibility.Investigators say that the hotel maid who accused Strauss-Kahn of sexually attacking her on May 14 may have connections to organized crime and repeatedly lied to investigators.Before his New York arrest, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was considered the leading Socialist candidate for the French presidential elections next year.According to Robert Zaretsky, a French history professor at the University of Houston, the latest accusations against Strauss-Kahn are, contrary to popular belief, less political assassination than “political suicide.”“It is significant that Tristane Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret – who is a fairly important figure in the Socialist Party, and who urged her daughter back in 2003 not to say anything about the attack – has now come out of the closet and is insisting that Strauss-Kahn and his sexual habits have been long-known among Socialists, long lamented, but nobody has said anything about them,” Zaretsky said.
