Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), Director General of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is currently in Paris, for the G20 summit that took place this week end (18th-19th-20th of February). His presence in the capital reopens once again the debate over his future career projects. Will he be the Socialist (or Social-Democrat) candidate for the next 2012 national presidential elections? Will he reapply for his post at the IMF in 2013? Or – even more hypothetically – will he decide to run for the presidency of the European Council in 2012?
In this climate of uncertainty, the coming of the Director General of the IMF makes the whole country hoping for more precisions on his future career plans, especially on his intentions concerning French presidential elections. For three days, DSK will be at the mercy of the predatory French journalists: Is it the end of a long-lasting suspense? Maybe… the old socialist economic minister has attended the TV news on France 2 (French TV channel) yesterday, and has met and answer on Friday the 18th (but to be published later on) the questions of eight readers of the French newspaper Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France.
In France, the tension keeps increasing. Dominique Strauss Kahn is subjected to numerous criticisms, very harsh when coming from right wing politicians, and still quite unfriendly when coming from the Left. Indeed, the president of the IMF is frightening the whole French political arena. And this state of things is not facilitated by constant contradictory peace of information. Last week, his wife declared that she did not want her husband to run for another mandate at the IMF. Last Friday DSK stated that he was missing France…
From the Right part, several members of President Sarkozy’s party – the UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire/ Union for a Popular Movement)- launched the hostilities by making depreciative statements a propos Dominique Strauss Kahn. For Pierre Lellouche, French Junior Minister for Trade, the President of the IMF is “completely disconnected from the reality of the country”. He is “a grand bourgeois that lives the globalisation of very rich people and Chief Executive Officers”. For Jean-Fançois Copé, General Secretary of the UMP, DSK has a great flaw: he stayed to long away far from France. Christian Jacob, president of the UMP group at the French national assembly, declared last Sunday the 13th that the former French minister of economy could never “embody France, the rural France, the France of regions and territories, the France that we like, the one to which I am attached to”.
DSK does also scare the Left, which hence keeps alert. Criticised for incarnating the ‘ultra caviar’ Left, this image is not helped by the fact that he is managing the IMF, liberal world organisation. Jean Luc Melenchon, co-president of the Parti de Gauche (PG – Left Party) reacted for instance very strongly to the numerous polls that gave DSK winner of the 2012 national presidential elections (assuming that the elections were hold this Sunday). He qualifies those polls as “a fantasy of a mute PS candidate that would obtain unbelievable scores”.
Yet, it is far from being certain that DSK is even slightly interested in running for the national presidential elections. In fact, it would have many negative consequences: he would quit a job where he is fully competent and where he is very well paid to throw himself into the lion’s mouth. Being the French President is indeed risky in these difficult days… just need to look at Nicolas Sarkozy’s popularity rating to be persuaded of this.
Then what? Is he going to run for a second mandate as director general of the IMF? Could be…but his wife claimed to be against, and he declared yesterday on France 2 TV news that his wife opinion was extremely important to him. What then? For such a fervent Europeanist, there is a position that would perfectly suit him: president of the European Council. In fact, this role seems to be made for him. What Herman Van Rompuy has achieved until here is mainly to try to reinforce a European economic governance, notably through his ‘Task Force’. Who else would be as up to the job of taking over the task of enhancing economic governance inside the EU as the Director of the IMF?
There is some hope that DSK is indeed tempted to run for Mr Van Rompuy’s post. First, the rumour was launched by the French newspaper the Canard Enchaîné as soon as July 2010 (precisely in the July, 21st 2010’s edition). According to the newspaper, the former economic minister could be willing to “catapult himself, in autumn 2012, into president of Europe (sic), in place of the Belgian Herman Van Rompuy”. In addition, DSK is already involving himself a lot in European affairs, as showed the numerous declarations he made in favour of more integration in the EU. At many occasions he took a favourable position on controversial issues, such as on the economic harmony inside the Eurozone, common labour legislation, common taxation and social systems, and so forth.
Partisan of a strong Europe, DSK could be an amazing President of the European Council (or if I push further the fantasy, I would say that, even better, he could be an amazing President of the European Commission). Far from the disappointing EU representatives; Herman Van Rompuy, that works in the shade, Baroness Catherine Ashton that seems completely useless (e.g. no – or so late – reaction to the uprisings in North Africa), and José Manuel Barroso who is the puppet of the Member States, his appointment could at last provide us with a strong personality at the head of the EU. He could provide the EU with the new impetus it definitely needs, and force the Union out of the apathy it is slowly falling into because of Member States’ incoherences.
Hence, we will see. The personage is also very looked-for in France where people are longing for a substantial alternative to the current French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In addition, DSK could well be re-elected at the head of the IMF, where he plays a great influential role. Yet, if none of the above propositions are born out, he could have the possibility to rise to the challenge of making the EU stronger. Today, the EU primary necessity is to reinforce and harmonize financial and economic structures. I do not see someone better than Dominique Strauss-Kahn to do that.
Angela Shoeman
Membre des Cabris de l’Europe
