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Showing posts with label Tristane Banon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tristane Banon. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 October 2012

"Leave me alone," says Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Ah. We've all missed him, haven't we?

Who?

Dominique Strauss-Kahn of course.

Since his alleged "philandering" (to put in mildly) in that infamous Sofitel suite in New York back in May 2011, the former head of the International Monetary Fund has only given one interview.

That was with the clearly uncomfortable TF1 news anchor Claire Chazal in September last year when DSK gave a table-thumping performance while brandishing a document "proving" his innocence but also having the temerity to admit he had made a "moral error" - whatever that was supposed to mean.



Since then of course there have been further accusations, such as those of writer and journalist Tristane Banon and investigations into his involvement in hotel sex parties with prostitutes in the northern city of Lille.

His long-suffering and very deep-pocketed wife Anne Sinclair has flown the coop, and the man to whom France must be eternally grateful for the arrival of the gormlessly presidential normal one in office (François Hollande, in case you were wondering), has kept as low a profile as possible given the circumstances.

But now the man the French "affectionately" (really?) refer to as DSK is back - sort of - with an exclusive and all-revealing five-page interview in the weekly news magazine Le Point.



Actually it's not - revealing that is.

Much of what DSK actually tells the magazine has been heard or said before with the exception perhaps that, in almost Greta Garbo-style, DSK launches a plea for the media to leave him alone.

Reach for your handkerchieves everyone as you read the following (paraphrased) extract.

"I no longer play any sort of official public role. I'm not a candidate for anything and I have never been convicted either in this country or any other," he tells Le Point.

"Therefore there's really no reason why the media should be so interested in me and to such an extent it has become almost like a manhunt," he continues, disingenuously to say the least.

"I can no longer stand the fact that the media seems to have given itself the 'right' to violate my privacy in the way it has, just because there have been false allegations made against me and judicial investigations launched.

"I just want to be left alone!"

And yadda yadda yadda.

DSK is probably not the only one - that wishes he would be left alone, that is.

The less coverage, the better.

But just in case you can't get enough and want a great pre-bedtime read with your Horlicks, rush out now to the newsagents to secure your copy of this week's Le Point.

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and that "interview"

So, the former head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) has "spoken" to the French in a mind-numbingly tedious and staged interview on prime time news here.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn (screenshot from TF1 interview)

The subject of course, as if you needed telling, was what really happened in room 2806 of the Sofitel in New York on May 15.

Except what viewers were treated to was anything but an insight.

Instead it was a carefully orchestrated affair with DSK claiming he had been proven innocent, admitting to a "moral failing" (so that's the new, politically correct term for any indecent behaviour) and almost terrifying poor Claire Chazal, the journalist faced with the onerous task of not asking anything that might embarrass.

Humility, sincerity and honesty were hardly at the top of DSK's agenda as he twisted the facts to suit his proclaimed "innocence".

He brandished the report of the New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance junior, claiming that it not only proved his innocence but also showed that Nafissatou Diallo had lied throughout, an inaccuracy in interpretation TF1 was quick to point out in the following night's prime time news, presented by Laurance Ferrari, a journalist who might just have given DSK more of a grilling had she been allowed the "honour" of interviewing him.

http://videos.tf1.fr/jt-20h/que-contient-au-juste-le-rapport-du-procureur-brandi-par-dsk-6716434.html

But Ferrari wasn't the one who had been chosen. Rather it was Chazal, a women with decades of experience, an anchor of TF1's lunchtime and evening news at the weekend and reportedly a friend of DSK's wife Anne Sinclair (herself a former television journalist).

The 54-year-old was clearly frustrated at the limits that had so obviously been given to her and the whole "interview" proved to be nothing more than a charade.

Diallo had lied...she was also, just like the French writer and journalist Tristane Banon, who accused DSK of trying to assault her in 2003, a troubled woman... the weekly news magazine L'Express was nothing but a tabloid....the US justice system had frightened and humiliated him even before he had been able to proclaim his innocence...and on and on it went.

Great television though - well in terms of ratings - as it pulled in around 13 million viewers.

If you want to watch the whole "performance" in its original French, then sit back, listen and "Watch with Mother" to all 23 minutes and 47 seconds worth.


Bon courage.


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