This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that
translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article
below was originally published in Le Monde.
It is a crazy story, one that could have only happened to him: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, whose multiple talents offered the chance to achieve the loftiest goals — yet who was capable of sacrificing it all for the most trivial of pleasures.
Magnetic and yet sometimes disturbingly flippant, more concerned with his freedom than his reputation, the man known as DSK is the star of a paroxystic adventure that saw him, within the space of six weeks, go from being the favorite in the upcoming French presidential elections to being charged, on Monday, May 16, with sexual assault. As he faced the dire possibility of spending the rest of his days in jail, along comes redemption, on July 1, when serious doubts surfaced about the credibility of his accuser, a New York chambermaid.
