Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/french-morals-american-justice/article2027281/

French morals, American justice

Margaret Wente

May. 19, 2011

The French elites are in an advanced state of shock about the downfall of one of their own, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the man who was widely expected to be president. But the French elites are not like you and me. Instead of asking whether such a powerful, brilliant and successful man could be so coarse, reckless and stupid, they’re outraged about the perp walk. How dare the Americans humiliate him so? Pictures of the great man in cuffs are indicative of “a brutality, a violence, of an incredible cruelty,” declared Elisabeth Guigou, a former French justice minister. “I’m happy that we don’t have the same judiciary system.”

Me too. The American system is infinitely more fair. In France, it’s unimaginable that an immigrant hotel maid of no status could lodge an assault complaint against an ultra-alpha male and be taken seriously. It’s inconceivable that the French police would pull that man off a plane moments before it departed or pack him off to a dingy jail cell like a common criminal. Good for them. If DSK had made it out of the country, it’s uncertain they’d have been able to extradite him.

Of course, it’s up to the American justice system to prove Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s guilt or innocence, a job at which it is generally quite good. According to press reports, his lawyers won’t deny there was a sexual encounter in that $3,000 hotel room. Instead, they’ll argue that it was consensual.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s sexual history was no secret among the French ruling class. But they didn’t care, and the media studiously ignored it. It would have been considered in grotesque bad taste (and possibly illegal) to bring these matters up. Besides, a certain amount of libertinage has always been admired among the political class, as a sign of vigour.