New Strauss-Kahn claims hit French Socialists

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Source: The Guardian

The Socialist frontrunner for next year's French presidential election has been drawn into the attempted-rape case against Dominique Strauss-Khan after claims that he was told about sexual assault allegations against the former IMF boss in 2003.

François Hollande will be questioned by police about how much he knew of the claim by French writer Tristane Banon that Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her when she went to interview him.

Banon's mother Anne Mansouret says she told Hollande, who was then first secretary of the French Socialist party, about the incident and that he advised her daughter not to pursue legal action - leading to suggestions of a cover-up at the highest levels of the party.

As the beleaguered Socialists faced the prospect of another leader being tainted by the Strauss-Kahn scandal, the affair took another twist with a claim that Mansouret had a fling with the politician, three years before the alleged attack on her daughter.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/19/strauss-kahn-hollande-allegations-mansouret