Naughty banker!
"Rights body scolds France, saying spanking kids is a no-no" Associated Press March 05, 2015
PARIS — Scolding France like a wayward child, Europe’s top human rights body says French laws aren’t clear enough that corporal punishment of children is not OK.
France all but shrugged off the criticism, with officials saying they wouldn’t do anything in response to the 47-member Council of Europe’s finding.
But the move wades into a thorny, ongoing cultural debate in a country where ‘‘la fessée’’ — spanking — is often seen as a traditional, if last resort, form of discipline.
Is that what the looters need?
And France may not be alone. Wednesday’s decision comes in response to a 2013 complaint from the Association for the Protection of All Children against France and six other countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy, Ireland, Slovenia, and Cyprus. The council said announcements will be made in late May on the remaining countries, except Cyprus, which has since banned corporal punishment.
Opponents of corporal punishment say it can at least leave psychological scars, if not physical ones. And European institutions have increasingly ruled in their favor. But enforcement in courts is admittedly a tough task.
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Related: Strauss-Kahn's Sex Romps
I don't want to know anymore.
"Strauss-Kahn trial reveals shocking sex, but weak case against him" by Philippe Sotto, Associated Press February 17, 2015
LILLE, France — Dominique Strauss-Kahn has testified to having orgies while he was managing the world financial crisis, to being ‘‘rough’’ with his sexual ‘‘conquests,’’ and to needing sex with exceptional frequency. But no obvious evidence has emerged during a prostitution trial in northern France that Strauss-Kahn did anything illegal.
As the trial enters its third and final week, it is looking increasingly likely that the onetime presidential contender will walk away with a clean criminal record.
Strauss-Kahn, one of 14 people on trial, is accused of aggravated pimping over a series of sex parties in France, Washington, and Brussels, while he was leading the International Monetary Fund and was married.
He insists he didn’t know the women involved were prostitutes. Two of his codefendants say they recruited and paid the women themselves, and built a wall of silence to ensure that Strauss-Kahn wasn’t aware.
Even the prosecutor didn’t think there was enough of a case against Strauss-Kahn and argued in 2013 against including him in the trial. Under French law, investigating judges can override prosecutors’ recommendations and send someone to trial anyway, which they did with Strauss-Kahn.
He faces up to 10 years in prison and $1.7 million in fines if convicted. But prosecutor Frederic Fevre could argue for acquittal for Strauss-Kahn during closing arguments Tuesday, to focus on getting convictions for other defendants accused in a large prostitution ring out of the Hotel Carlton in Lille.
Strauss-Kahn, who has appeared increasingly confident throughout the proceedings, may take the stand himself Friday for a closing statement.
The three-judge panel will decide Friday when to deliver a verdict.
During three days of surrealistic testimony by Strauss-Kahn about the sex parties, the prosecutor and his assistant remained largely silent.
Sometimes in tears, two prostitutes described ‘‘beast-like’’ scenes, involving sometimes brutal sex practices. One said she felt like meat in a slaughterhouse.
The testimony showed what one lawyer called the ‘‘sordid and dark reality’’ of the sex business.
But all the prostitutes cited in the indictment, including the two testifying at the trial, said they had participated of their own accord and were never paid directly by Strauss-Kahn. They said they never told him they were paid sex workers.
Even a plaintiff’s lawyer acknowledged the case isn’t black and white. ‘‘I have the absolute certainty that Mr. Strauss-Kahn knew that there were some prostitutes in this international ring. Is that sufficient to establish a pimping offense? We will debate about that,’’ lawyer David Lepidi said.
Strauss-Kahn’s IMF job and presidential chances collapsed in 2011 when he was arrested in New York on accusations that he sexually assaulted a hotel maid.
Those charges were later dropped and he settled out of court.
He was also accused of attempted rape of a French writer; that case was dropped because the statute of limitations had expired.
The Lille case is the first time he has been put on trial. He openly testified to extravagant sex but said he thought the women present were ‘‘libertines’’ like himself.
While the line between politicians’ public and private lives has blurred somewhat in France in recent years, it remains more acceptable here for a politician to have extra-marital sexual encounters than in some other countries.
French President Francois Hollande elicited shock and criticism in the United States when caught by paparazzi visiting a lover on his motorbike, but a year later, French voters have largely moved on.
As this trial unfolds, there is a sense that Strauss-Kahn crossed beyond even what the French public tolerates from their politicians. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he will go to prison.
To prove that Strauss-Kahn is guilty, the trial has to show he knew the women were prostitutes and he arranged their activities as prostitutes or profited financially from them.
Prostitution is legal in France, but it’s illegal to organize a prostitution ring or profit from a prostitute’s business.
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"Dominique Strauss-Kahn case weakens" by Dan Bilefsky, New York Times February 18, 2015
PARIS — A prosecutor asked a criminal court in Lille on Tuesday to drop charges against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, saying there was not enough evidence to convict him of procuring prostitutes, according to news reports.
The case against Strauss-Kahn already appeared to be falling apart, after five of the six plaintiffs retracted their accusations against him Monday, citing a lack of evidence that he intended to break the law. Strauss-Kahn has consistently said that he did not know that the women at sex parties he attended were prostitutes. Prosecutors had accused him of participation in an international sex ring that extended from Lille to Paris and Washington.
The prosecutor had earlier suggested that the case against Strauss-Kahn was weak, but he was overruled by investigating judges.
While the prosecutor’s recommendation demonstrates how hard it would be to convict Strauss-Kahn, under French law the decision ultimately rests with the three judges in the case.
A verdict is not expected for several months. If convicted, Strauss-Kahn could face up to 10 years in prison and fines of more than $1.7 million. But most legal experts believe Strauss-Kahn will be acquitted.
The testimony during the trial often bordered on the burlesque, and featured a cast of characters including a sex club owner, former prostitutes called Mounia and Jade, and a former police chief. At the nexus of the sex ring, prosecutors said, was the faded and kitschy glamour of the Carlton Hotel in Lille, which features gilded statuettes, Louis XVI furniture, and palatial suites. Orgies attended by judges, journalists, and power brokers were said to have taken place at the hotel.
Strauss-Kahn, who was once considered a favorite to become president of France, was accused, along with 13 other defendants, of aggravated pimping, and of using friends to obtain prostitutes for elaborate sex parties.
Strauss-Kahn testified during the trial that he was too busy trying to deal with the global economy to organize orgies. He said he attended such affairs at most four times a year.
The trial signaled a new humiliation for Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign as head of the IMF in 2011 after he was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid. Those charges were later dropped, and a lawsuit was settled.
$cum.
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Another playful spanking of a French leader:
"Hollande survives no-confidence vote" by Aurelien Breeden, New York Times February 20, 2015
PARIS — France’s Socialist government survived a confidence vote in the National Assembly on Thursday, two days after it forced through a contentious package of economic measures without a ballot.
The confidence vote ensures the bill, best known for loosening limits on opening stores on Sundays, will advance.
The vote Thursday followed maneuvering by Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Tuesday to push the economic package through the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, by employing a rarely used constitutional tool to bypass Socialist rebels. Use of the tactic underlines the difficulties that President François Hollande has faced within his own party to restructure the economy and try to stimulate job growth.
The call for a confidence vote was meant to send a message to Hollande’s government.
“The masks have fallen,” Christian Jacob, of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement party, in the National Assembly, told Valls before the vote. “You are no longer in control, you are no longer steering.”
But while maverick Socialists who opposed the package have lambasted the administration’s economic policies, many were unwilling to go so far as to topple their own government. The motion, which needed an absolute majority of 289 votes to pass, mustered only 234.
The package, put together by the economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, and named after him, aims to spur growth by loosening France’s restrictive work and licensing rules. It calls for opening up closed professions, including notaries, bailiffs, court clerks, and auctioneers, and allowing long-haul bus lines to compete more directly with the French national rail service. France would also sell billions of dollars’ worth of state assets to reduce debt and to invest in the economy.
It's France's Macron economics. No wonder the French people hate him.
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