http://www.guardian.co.uk(...)-kahn-tristane-banon![Tristane-Banon-006.jpg]()
A local official of the Socialist party claimed that Strauss-Kahn had attacked her daughter, who is goddaughter to Strauss-Kahn's second wife, in 2002.
Tristane Banon was in her 20s and writing a book when she approached Strauss-Kahn for an interview in 2002. In a TV programme in 2007, in which Strauss-Kahn's name had been bleeped out, Banon allegedly described him as a "rutting chimpanzee" and described how she was forced to fight him off. "It finished badly … very violently … I kicked him," Banon said. "When we were fighting, I mentioned the word 'rape' to make him afraid, but it didn't have any effect. I managed to get out."
Banon consulted a lawyer, but did not press charges. "I didn't want to be known to the end of my days as the girl who had a problem with the politician."
Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, told journalists on Sunday night she had dissuaded her daughter from legal action because she believed Strauss-Kahn's behaviour had been out of character and because of close links with his family. "Today I am sorry to have discouraged my daughter from complaining. I bear a heavy responsibility," she said.
She said Strauss-Kahn was "an otherwise warm, sympathetic and extremely talented man", but the attack left her daughter depressed and traumatised. "My daughter, despite the passing years, is still shocked by these facts. Her life was completely upset by this affair and she was depressed for a long time." She added that it was clear Strauss-Kahn had "difficulty controlling his urges". She said: "I'm not a doctor or psychiatrist, but there is something violent in this predatory move."
========================
But in 2008, after a well-documented affair with Piroska Nagy a Hungarian economist and a junior colleague at the IMF, he was forced to publicly apologise for "an error of judgment", but was cleared of abusing his position. He insisted the relationship was consensual, but when his wife, journalist Anne Sinclair, described it as a "one-night stand", an indignant Nagy wrote to investigators saying: "I was not prepared for the advances of the IMF director general. I didn't know what to do … I felt damned if I do, damned if I don't." Nagy left her job at the IMF after the affair, and hinted at harassment of female staff, adding that her boss had "without question" used his position to seduce her.