THERE’S nothing remarkable in the physical traits of Dominique Strauss Kahn, or DSK, as he is popularly known here, to conform to the traditional image of a lady-killer. At 63 he is practically white-haired, noticeably overweight, slightly hunched, not really tall and with an unmistakable squint in his left eye.

Yet this internationally recognised economist and politician squandered his chances of becoming the President of France because of his much maligned penchant for getting involved in messy sex scandals with women not necessarily beautiful.

How and when did these suicidal tendencies take over the psyche of an otherwise brilliant youth who was born in a well-to-do family and who successfully went through a number of elitist educational institutions of France, only a Sigmund Freud can explain. But Freud has been dead for a long time now!

DSK evolved into his professional life in the 1980s with unmistakable promise and with little indication of any apparent self-destructive features in his character. By turns, he was a professor of economics, a successful lawyer, a member of the French parliament and eventually a mayor.

If anyone had noticed that he was already divorced from two earlier wives by the time he got married, in 1991, to the New York-born Anne Sinclaire who had inherited a large fortune besides being a star journalist on a French TV network, the subject was hardly evoked.

DSK’s ascension to glory went ahead unabated as he was appointed minister of industry that same year by the Socialist President François Mitterrand. The noble-hearted Anne Sinclaire gave up her TV job soon afterwards in order to avoid any conflict of interests with the political career of her husband.

The French press never talked about it, but close friends were in the know that besides politics, teaching, economics and law, DSK had another secret passion …that for leading a libertine lifestyle and being a Casanova. He was in any case out of the media limelight when the Socialists lost power after the 1995 presidential election. He went back to his law practice and teaching, though he remained an important figure within the Socialist Party circles.

The big surprise came in July 2007 when President Nicolas Sarkozy, a man of the right, decided to recommend DSK to head the International Monetary Fund. A few political analysts at that time cynically remarked this was a clever move by Sarkozy to push out of the path a political rival who was sure to beat him in the presidential election in 2012 as no other Socialist pretender had qualities rivaling DSK’s.

If DSK was determined to go on playing Casanova even as head of the IMF, a particular scandal did not assume alarming proportions when an investigation was carried out in 2008 following complaint by Piroska Nagy, a woman employee, that the new boss had been using his power for an intimate relationship with her for nearly a year. DSK readily pleaded guilty and the lady was discretely compensated with a generous parting gift by the IMF and a new job elsewhere.

Though the newspapers remained tongue in cheek about the Nagy affair and the culpable man was pardoned by his wife, the cat was out of the bag in a way, and it was only a matter of time before DSK’s sex life should become international news. This happened on May 14 last year when Nafissatou Diallo, a Guinean-born cleaning woman at New York’s Sofitel Hotel, complained to police that she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Khn …but we know all about that.

Although DSK was humiliated by being handcuffed and then thrown into the Riker’s Island prison meant for hardened criminals, it was soon learnt that Diallo had a known history of lying, false accusations and blackmail. Kahn was consequently released and the charges were dropped, but the adventure had already cost him his prestigious job as head of the IMF.

His reputation in tatters, on return home DSK had to renounce definitively his dream of becoming the President of France.

Then, suddenly all hell broke loose when a Parisian journalist Tristane Banon filed a complaint that he had made sexual advances towards her during an exclusive newspaper interview. The police opened another probe into an even more sinister charge of DSK being part of a gang that paid prostitutes to participate in group sex in five-star hotel rooms.

The one-time rising star of French politics, an almost certain president of the republic and an accredited authority on international economy, in the beginning denied all these accusations. But today, probably realising that he is heading towards old age, DSK visibly appears sick and tired of all the media attention he is getting.

In an interview recently to a French newsweekly, he said if something took place in the room between himself and the hotel maid in New York, it was by pure consent and was nobody else’s business. And yes, he tried to kiss that journalist, but for heaven’s sake what’s wrong with a man kissing a young woman?

DSK resignedly admits his participation in the group sex soirees too. “A man has the right to a libertine way of life if he so desires and as long as he is not breaking the law. I want people to leave me alone,” he sighs.

According to the latest news in the popular press, while Anne Sinclaire is preparing divorce proceedings, DSK is often seen with his latest conquest, a slim Moroccan-born blonde called Myriam L’Aouffir.

The writer is a journalist based in Paris. (ZafMasud@gmail.com)