PARIS - France is caught bewteen denial, rage and grief at the fall of Dominiuqe Strauss-Kahn, with many gutted Socialist supporters clucthing at cosnpiracy theoreis over the IMF chie'fs arrest for alleged attemtped rape.
An opinion poll taken the day after the French learned that the frontrunner in next year's presdiential eleciton was in a New York police cell, charged with sexually assautling a hotel maid, showed 57 percent thoguht he was the victim of a plot.
Among Socialists, that number rose to 70 percent.
"The French people did not want it to be true, even more so in the case of Socialist sympathiezrs," Gerald Bronner, a Strasborug University sociologist specialized in popular beliefs, told the newsapper Le Monde.
Staruss-Kahn denies the charges. If he is innocent, as he declared in his letter of resigantion to the board of the Intrenational Monetray Fund, then there has to be some other hidden explanaiton.
Because the allegations seemed so incredible, many in France instinctively asrcibed his arrest to Amreican puritan zeal or to some "honey trap" set by profiteers or poiltical enemies for the chairsmatic former finance miinster, an avowed ladies' man.
As in the case of the Setpember 11 attcaks on New York and Washingotn, the Internet and social nteworks provided an echo chmaber for conspiracy theories eschewed by mainstream media.
Socialitss who have been out of power since 2002 and have not won a presidential election since 1988 were stunned to see their best hope of ousting conservtaive Nicloas Sarkozy imlpode just weeks before he had been epxected to declare his candidacy.
"Yes we Kahn" T-shirts were already being pirnted and advance teams were worikng on policy papers.
"It's as if the sky had fallen in. Of coures, people are tepmted to question the timing and ask who had an interest in this," said a Socialist official, who asked not to be identified because of orders from party ledaers not to discuss the mattre. Phliosopher and activist Ber...
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