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DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN has returned to France for the first time since being charged with the attempted rape of a New York hotel maid, in a a scandal that wrecked the former IMF chief’s chances for the French presidency.
New York prosecutors later dropped their case against Strauss-Kahn because of questions about the maid’s credibility, but the affair cost him his job at the IMF and exposed his personal life to worldwide scrutiny that has stained his image and plunged his political future into uncertainty.
Smiling and waving silently, he stepped off an Air France flight this morning at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport – a different man from the one who, just four months ago, had been the pollsters’ favorite to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections.
Few expect Strauss-Kahn to return to French politics soon, but his supporters have been eagerly awaiting his return after three months of legal drama in the US that they saw as unfairly hostile to him.
“I’m moved, I always believed in his innocence. I wanted very much for this to be over,” Michelle Sabban, a fellow Socialist Party member, said on i-Tele television.
His wife, respected former TV personality Anne Sinclair, was at Strauss-Kahn’s side as he arrived, beaming widely. Riot police protected him and the area. The crush of reporters outside their home was so thick that Strauss-Kahn had trouble reaching and opening his front door.
The last time he tried to take an Air France flight from JFK airport, Strauss-Kahn was pulled out of first class minutes before takeoff by police. They were investigating the maid’s claim that hours earlier, Strauss-Kahn had forced her to perform oral sex and tried to rape her.
He quit his job, spent almost a week in jail, then six weeks of house arrest and nearly two more months barred from leaving the country before Manhattan prosecutors dropped the case last month, saying they no longer trusted the maid, Guinean immigrant Nafissatou Diallo.
Diallo is continuing to press her claims in a lawsuit. Strauss-Kahn denies the allegations.
A Strauss-Kahn faces another investigation in France over attempted rape, based on accusations by French novelist Tristane Banon. He calls the claim “imaginary.”
Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, believes that Strauss-Kahn’s return “is a good thing for my daughter’s complaint because he will have to answer to police.”
Banon says she didn’t file a complaint after the 2003 incident because her mother, a regional Socialist official, urged her not to.
Lovely read Brian, very nostalgic .
Just as well you didn’t finish “Eeenie meanie miny mo”, you’d be barred for life. :)
Brilliant read Fr Bryan. Certainly bring back memories. I was born in 1966 and I can relate to alot of this
Ah now there’s a great memory the big time bar. Loved them. Been trying to find one for ages :)
@Declan Moran: Trigger Bar ,Texan bar and Fizz bombs
@Quentin Moriarty: Texan, sure is a mighty chew.
@Declan Moran: cafferys, the chocolate factory, just off the Walkinstown roundabout in Dublin, have a shop that’s open to the public
@Declan Moran: loose tooth coming out stuck in the bar. Crying that the tooth fairy wouldn’t be able to pay for it as Mammy wouldn’t let me put it under the pillow
I remember going to the shop with sixpence and coming home with bars of chocolate, bottles of TK, lollipops and more.
Now there’s CCTV cameras everywhere!
Whoever said “nostalgia ain’t what it used to be” hasn’t read this, imo.
I could relate to so much of this, born a few years before the writer.
A lovely read
Old wooden desks with ink wells and I used a knib too and got a few slaps in those times .. mart and market ..
Brilliant!
‘Little did we know…’. Indeed. An unfortunate way to end the piece in view of what we know now about the RC church.
Lucozade in glass bottles with orange plastic wrapper around it. HB ice cream blocks cut by the shopkeeper,2p for one slice,4p for double add the wafers at the end. Irish Coffee chocolate bars,and Jamaica Rum chocolate bars. Sweet cigarettes. Cap guns and you could smell the sulphur. Buying penknives in the cornershop as an 11 yr old. Esso garages giving you tokens when you buy the petrol,or 3D cards of exotic animals to fill your album. Football cards with cigarettes. Food in the larder in the wall of the house if you didn’t have a fridge,sure it’ll be grand. Cocoa and twiglets before Nana put you to bed. Nostalgia!
@Larry Betts: I can hear the crinkle of that paper now. Lovely memories.Longing for a time bar now too.
A lovely read. Thanks for that. I really enjoyed it even though it was a fraction before my time but I could definitely appreciate the idea of simpler times.
Great read, thanks for posting ..
A few more
Green Shield Stamps
McDonalds on Grafton St. Only 1 in Ireland for many years
Burdocks driven by coal fire fryers
Bruised pears and Cadbury’s at Croke Park on big March day. Heffo’s Army !
Woolworths all over town, even Thomas St
Aromatic pollution from Guinness, James St
Best one of all for me ..
cycling home from CBS James St to Palmerstown past the Rowntree McIntosh factory in Kilmainham (now Hilton Hilton Hotel and Apartments), and enjoying the different flavor each day in the air, some days it was lemon, others orange all waxed in with the smell of freshly made KitKats !! 1/2 way home at that point .. Ah the simple pleasures.
Regards from San Francisco Bay Area, since 1995.
Thanks for stirring up some nice memories. Some things I’d forgotten about & transported me back in time.
Pixie toffee & macaroon bars if you were lucky! Apple sponge from KC Bakery
Orange Maid in the cinema!
Loved Radiomulsin :-)
@Declan Daly: I’ve been trying to remember the name of that stuff for years… what a great read for a Sunday morning.
Great read, thanks for that, a little before my time also but I smiled when I read the word “Ciderette”!, I remember it not being as freely available as red lemonade so it was rare and wonderful. I might never have been reminded of it but for this article, cheers.
Lovely piece, brings back many memories.
Excellent, thanks.
6-penny seats at the matinee at The Shack (Ritz Cinema, Ballsbridge)
Gobstoppers
Gur Cake
Cleeves’ Toffee slabs
Peanuts from the machine.
Big 5 Bars
Lemon’s boiled sweets
Fuller’s cakes with white icing and raspberry sweets.
Rum & Butter bonbons
Ships blowing sirens on New Year’s Eve
The smell of Chimneys on Fire, with the dense white smoke
Steam Rollers and the smell of fresh laid Tar.
Black Magic Chocs at the Panto
Boxing the Fox (It was OK, they were Protestant Apples!)
On the Footplate of the very last steam engine to pull the Mail train from Westland Row to Dun Laoghaire.
A bag of flogs, TK Lemonade and hearing reports on RTE1 that someone was kneecapped in Belfast. Great days
Fantastic Trip down Memory Lane
Fantastic Trip down Memory Lane
Who does the young baby look like?
Ans: Michael Dillon from Mary and Market!!!
What were the cattle making in Ballinrobe?
Halls Pictorial Weekly
Hoping that it showed a local village that we would know in the opening sequence.
(Bonus points if we knew the dog crossing the street!!! )
Six Million Dollar Man – no one would ever have a million!!!
Outlook at the closing of RTE followed by the National Antrim!!!
The Dum Dum De Dum…. Before RTE started in the morning.
Old grey men ruled the world back then. – they didn’t hug their kids!!!
Washing a baby’s bottle with sand and water.
A plastic egg cup free in a box of OMO.
The Church had enough guilt for everyone in the audience!!!
His grandad’s pipe routine sounds like a friend of mine’s more modern approach to smoking.
What a lovely piece reminds
Me off all the weekends I spent in Dublin in the late seventies
The Dandelion market loved it
Little did we know that hundreds of priests were sexually abusing children
Father Brendan Smith, Bishop Casey, michael cleary. The Magdalene laundries, the Christian brothers. Ahhh the memories.
I remember buying a Jim Fitzpatrick mirror in the Dandelion then being stopped by Maureen Potter in Grafton Street who admired my purchase.
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