Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Strauss-Kahn, French Jewish Leader? IMF Head Does to African Maid What Global Finance Does to Africa

Two thoughts about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund and currently Riker’s Island’s most distinguished resident…

Before his arrest, he was considered the clear front-runner in France’s upcoming presidential election, set for next April. Were he elected, he would have been the sixth Jewish leader of France. Despite its reputation for anti-Semitism, France has elected five Jewish prime ministers. The only other country with a comparable record is Israel (10 Jewish prime ministers, nine Jewish presidents).

Here they are in chronological order: Leon Blum (1936-37, March-April 1938, 1946-47; Rene Mayer, January-June 1953; Pierre Mendes-France, 1953-54; Michel Debre (Jewish father), 1959-62; Laurent Fabius (Jewish father), 1984-86.

They don’t settle for halfway measures when they pick a French Jewish leader. Compare that to American Jewish leaders, who don’t lead America and don’t lead Jews.

If Strauss-Kahn manages to overcome his legal troubles and come back to win the election, France will become the second country to have a Jewish alleged sexual predator in its presidential palace.

Jon Stewart pointed out last night that Strauss-Kahn’s alleged victim is an African immigrant, which means that the head of the IMF was (allegedly) doing to an African woman what the global economic system is doing to Africa. “He’s posing for his own political cartoon,” Stewart said.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Explore

Most Popular

In Case You Missed It

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.