Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned to France today. Along with his wife Anne Sinclair, he arrived at Roissy Airport this morning after a four-month long fight against rape charges in New York City.
Just today in the newspaper Le Parisien, there were separate articles about the former IMF president's arrival in Paris, about the couple's departure from the airport of Roissy, about their return home to the Place des Vosges, about their media silence all day, about his continuing legal issues, about fellow Socialists' mixed views of his arrival, about the rival UMP's snarky commentary, and about his intentions to stay at home this afternoon. Those are only some of the Le Parisien articles about DSK from this afternoon.
Shortly before DSK's arrest for attempted rape in New York City, he admitted that his presidential ambitions would be hindered by three things: he's rich, he's a womanizer, and he's a Jew. At the time, it seemed as though his wealth would be the big stumbling block for the potential Socialist candidate. The possible champion of the working classes had been photographed stepping into a Porsche, raising questions about the suitability of a rich banker as the Socialist candidate for president. In retrospect, it wasn't his wealth so much as his womanizing that effectively ended his candidacy before it ever began.
Of course, there's no need to beat a dead horse. We've heard all too much about DSK's pecadillos. So let's skip the skirt-chasing and go straight to his Jewishness.
When I first heard him list those three impediments, it surprised me that he was Jewish. I guess the last name should have given it away, but when you come from a melting pot nation, you don't always pay attention to last names--they rarely mean anything anymore. I'm a 'Schaefer', for instance, but no one in my family speaks German.
What surprised me even more was that there were any Jews left in France. Maybe it's just my American bias yet once again, but I had assumed that the French, with their history of anti-Semitism, had shipped off all their Jews to concentration camps during the German occupation. As it turns out, French and German cooperation managed to kill off only 20% of the Jews living in France (76,000 of the approximately 350,000). Also, after decolonialization, many Jews living in Arab countries came to Metropolitan France to escape growing anti-Semitism (caused by, among other reasons, the creation of the state of Israel and by earlier Jewish collaboration with the French colonialists).
With that influx and natural population growth, there are now are over 480,000 Jews in France, DSK being only one among many. In Paris they can be found concentrated in certain neighborhoods, particularly in the 19th. Take a stroll through the Parc de Buttes-Chaumont on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and of the hundreds of people you will see relaxing on its hilly terrain, the majority will be Jews, most dressed up in their synagoge-best. DSK's home (which he won't be leaving today) is located in the Marais, another popular Jewish neighborhood.
Even if Parisian Jews have managed to escape past French anti-semitism and North African anti-semitism, their life is not perfect. Periodically there are conflicts between Arabs and Jews. In the last few years, some Jewish youths have been tortured and killed by Arab gangs. Heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians often produce mirror conflicts in Parisian neighborhoods where Arabs and Jews rub shoulders. And sometimes individual Jews cause problems for themselves...like when they bang hotel maids in foreign countries before grabbing lunch with their daughter and catching a flight back to their home sweet Parisian home.
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