Free Republic

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief, has been described as "mentally ill" by Michel Rocard, France's highly respected former prime minister. The 81-year-old elder statesman of the Socialist party delivered his damning verdict in a live TV interview on Monday night. Mr Rocard - French prime minister from 1988 to 1991 - said it was “clearly medical problems” that drove Mr Strauss-Kahn to become embroiled in repeated sex scandals. The 63-year-old former head of the International Monetary Fund was recently freed from charges of trying to rape a hotel chambermaid in New York. Guinea-born maid Nafissatou Diallo, 32, has launched...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s hopes of entering the French presidential race appeared to be over after a novelist who described him as a “rutting chimpanzee“ said she would make a criminal complaint of attempted rape. Tristane Banon, a 32-year-old journalist and writer, will file for charges on Tuesday over an alleged attack in a Paris apartment in 2003 during which she claims Strauss-Khan tried to unhook her bra and open her jeans. Her lawyer, David Koubbi said the complaint would reach the Paris prosecutor’s office by Wednesday. The announcement came just days after it emerged that the sexual assault case by an...