ANALYSIS:Dominique Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs on TV was an unbearable sight, writes RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
WHATEVER HAPPENS to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the image will live long in French memory. Taken late on Sunday night, the notable TV images showed Strauss-Kahn – handcuffed, his face wan and unshaven – being led from a Harlem police station to an unmarked car by a phalanx of plain-clothed policemen.
When France woke up to the spectacle on Monday morning, the country reacted with genuine shock. Manuel Valls, a prominent socialist, admitted he cried when he saw the “unbearably cruel” picture. Party leader Martine Aubry was struck by the “deeply humiliating” sight. “Happily, we live in a country where, thanks to the presumption of innocence, one cannot show men or women at this stage of proceedings handcuffed,” she said.
As France tries to make sense of the humiliating arrest of one of its most familiar public figures on charges of sexual assault, the trauma has seemed magnified by the cultural divide. Photographs or television images of suspects in handcuffs are banned by law here, while allowing cameras into courtrooms would be unthinkable. The state’s broadcasting authority yesterday urged television stations to use “the greatest restraint” in showing images of people facing criminal charges, an offence that carries a penalty of €15,000.
French shock at seeing Strauss-Kahn in handcuffs has been interpreted in America as further evidence of an instinct to protect the powerful, but both sides’ attitudes – American-style transparency and French discretion – are rooted in ideas of egalitarianism. It appears that in the US, suspects are treated equally badly and in France – in theory at least – equally well.
One French leader writer this week observed that the “perp walk” reminded French people of a form of “torture” under the old regime – namely, the shaming of a suspect through public exposure. “We’re not used to seeing courtroom images coming from the US,” socialist presidential candidate François Hollande said yesterday. “We have before us something out of a TV series. But we’re in reality.” His colleague Jack Lang was more forthright, calling it a “public lynching”.
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed such a display would be unfair if a defendant were to be found innocent. “But if you don’t want to do the ‘perp walk’, don’t do the crime,” he said – the sort of contradictory logic that feeds French outrage.
As the broadcasting authority pointed out, French laws and media customs place a high value on upholding a suspect’s personal dignity, and that is understood to include control over their public image. “The US justice system totally mocks the presumption of innocence,” said Jean-Louis Lagarde, an image rights lawyer.
Such unease has encouraged the remarkably large group of people who believe he was set up.
According to a CSA poll released yesterday, 57 per cent of French people think DSK was the victim of a plot. Among socialist voters, 70 per cent hold the view, as expressed by Christine Boutin, a conservative politician, that “somebody set a trap for Dominique Strauss-Kahn to fall into”. The temptation to imagine plots in response to such a dramatic event shouldn’t be surprising, not least in a country where the machinations of politicians often sound like the storylines of airport thrillers. This month, for example, the former foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, is on trial for allegedly plotting to discredit President Nicolas Sarkozy in a saga that involves money laundering, the sale of French frigates, a Luxembourg bank and the intelligence services.
Nevertheless, most of the media and politicians have roundly dismissed talk of plots and traps. “As well as the alleged victim, the chambermaid, there is another confirmed victim, which is France,” said environment minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. “It’s so French to see plots everywhere.”
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic is Paris Correspondent