Dominique Strauss-Kahn: My flesh is weak, but that's France

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Peter Allen12 April 2012

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has admitted he has had an "uninhibited" sex life and that cost him his country's presidency - but said it was "not unusual" in France.

In a new biography he speaks for the first time about the two attempted rape allegations which effectively ended his career and says he regularly met young women at orgies around the world - but insists he never paid for sex.

Admitting "my flesh is weak", the 62-year-old reveals a series of affairs but said that the casual oral sex with New York hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, 32, who then claimed to have been attacked, was something he regretted deeply.

He was arrested but prosecutors eventually dropped all criminal charges.

Mr Strauss-Kahn says: "Nothing would have happened if I hadn't had this consensual, but stupid relationship. That day, I opened the door to all the other affairs."

When he returned to Paris, the Frenchman was investigated over the attempted rape of writer Tristane Banon, now 32, in 2001. Although prosecutors said there was clear evidence Mr Strauss-Kahn had sexually assaulted Ms Banon, it was too long ago for legal action to be taken.

"I could have been in a position to be president," says Mr Strauss-Kahn, who was the favourite Socialist candidate to defeat president Nicolas Sarkozy next year. "Now, I'm no longer in that position."

Mr Strauss-Kahn admits to an "uninhibited sex life", but says this is neither unusual nor illegal, particularly in France.

Biographer Michel Taubmann uses DSK's Affairs - the Counter Inquiry to explore accusations that Mr Strauss-Kahn was involved in an illegal prostitution racket centred on the Carlton Hotel in Lille in northern France. Faced with accusations that he regularly attended orgies in France and the USA, Mr Strauss-Kahn says he never paid.

"In the press, they link my name to prostitution. It's unbearable," he says. "I did go to sex parties, it's true, but usually those who came to these events were not prostitutes. I have a horror of prostitution and pimping. Can you imagine the damage caused to my wife, our children?"

Mr Strauss-Kahn livesin Paris with his third wife, former TV presenter Anne Sinclair, who has, so far, stood by him.

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