MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Strauss-Kahn resigns to politics; gives account of his “moral failing”

Former IMF chief admits ”I have missed my rendezvous with the French people”

Dominique Strauss-Kahn admitted on Sunday his sexual encounter with a New York hotel maid constituted a “moral failing” toward his wife, his children and the French people, in his first public comments since an attempted-rape case led him to resign as International Monetary Fund chief and effectively annihilated his chances of becoming France's president next year.

In a prime-time interview on French television, Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62 years old, who returned to France on Sept. 4 after a New York judge, formally dismissed all criminal charges against him, made clear that he wouldn't run for president this time around and would remain distant from his Socialist friends.

“I have missed my rendezvous with the French,” Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who had been seen as one of the few opposition politicians who could defeat President Nicolas Sarkozy in the spring 2012 election, told television channel TF1. “I'm not proud of myself, I regret it enormously and I will regret it for a long, long time.”

Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested on May 14 after a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault, for the first time gave his own version of what happened. In the hotel room, he said, there was “no rape, no constraint, no aggression, and no criminal act.” He said he didn't pay for sex. He described the relationship as “inappropriate” vis-à-vis his wife.

In New York, Strauss-Kahn still faces a civil lawsuit by the hotel maid, who accused him of sexually assaulting her. Strauss-Kahn said he had “no intention” of negotiating an out-of-court settlement with the maid, Nafissatou Diallo. Strauss-Kahn, in the interview, again said he was innocent of the charges.

New York prosecutors have said there was evidence of a “hurried” encounter between Strauss-Kahn and Ms. Diallo, but said they couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was an attack. US lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn have said it was consensual.

Strauss-Kahn said he had been scared, upon his arrest in May, because he feared he would be “crushed by the jaws of a [judicial] machine.”

In France, Strauss-Kahn faces more legal woes. Last week, he was questioned as a witness by French police over accusations of attempted rape made against him by a novelist, a lawyer for the French politician said.

Paris prosecutors are conducting a preliminary probe into allegations made by French novelist Tristane Banon, who accused Strauss-Kahn of attempting to rape her in February 2003, when she went to see him for an interview for a book.

Strauss-Kahn said in the TV interview Sunday that there was “no aggression” and “no violence” by him against Ms. Banon when he met her. He said her description of events was “a figment of her own imagination,” adding that he had filed a complaint for slander. Ms. Banon has said recently she maintains her accusations.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn said Sunday that he wouldn't interfere with the Socialist Party's primary contest aimed at selecting a candidate for the next presidential elections.