Strauss-Kahn Concedes ‘Error’ in Sexual Encounter With Maid

[samuel]

Strauss-Kahn to face Tristane Banon rape allegation
04 July 11 21:11 GMT


French writer Tristane Banon is to file a complaint for attempted rape against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, her lawyer says.

Ms Banon accuses Mr Strauss-Kahn of trying to assault her as she tried to interview him in a Paris flat in 2003.

Mr Strauss-Kahn said he would sue Ms Banon for making false statements.

He was recently freed from house arrest in New York in a separate alleged case. He denies sexually assaulting a hotel maid in the city on 14 May.

It was shortly after Mr Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York that Ms Banon came forward to say that he had tried to assault her.

She did not go to the police at the time, but did raise the allegation in a TV chat show in 2007, when Mr Strauss-Kahn's name was bleeped out.

Ms Banon's lawyer, David Koubbi, said on Monday that she had instructed him "to file a formal criminal complaint for attempted rape" against Mr Strauss-Kahn. He said the complaint would be filed on Tuesday to a Paris prosecutor.

"These acts are extremely serious," Mr Koubbi said as he announced the legal action in France. "These events were combined with a violence that was absolutely remarkable for these kinds of cases."

He said the alleged incident took place in February 2003, and not in 2002 as previously reported.

'Word against word'

Ms Banon, 32, has claimed that during the interview, Mr Strauss-Kahn said he would only speak to her if she held his hand.

According to her version of events, she eventually had to fight him off as they wrestled on the floor and he undid her bra and pulled open her jeans.

"When I realised that he really wanted to rape me I started kicking him with my boots. I was terrified," she said in an interview published on Monday in French weekly L'Express.

She said she had not pursued the case eight years ago because at the time, "everyone told me it would never succeed".

But she said that following the allegations in New York there was "perhaps a chance to finally be listened to".

"If I want one day to put an end to this hell that has lasted eight years, it needs to be tried in court," she added.

"I'm well aware that in these kinds of cases, where it's one person's word against another - without even mentioning people who are that powerful - suspects are often released."

Mr Strauss-Kahn's French lawyers said on Monday they had been instructed to file a legal complaint against Ms Banon for making false statements about "imaginary" events.

Presidential bid 'unlikely'

Mr Strauss-Kahn had been a leading contender to be the French Socialist Party's presidential candidate before his arrest in May.

Concerns about the reliability of his accuser in New York have left that case reportedly in trouble, and led to speculation that he might return to French politics.

However, on Monday Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon said the idea that Mr Strauss-Kahn could now run for the presidency was "the weakest" of all possible scenarios.

Ms Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, herself a politician from Mr Strauss-Kahn's centre-left Socialist Party, said she had persuaded her daughter not to file a complaint at the time of the alleged incident.

But Ms Mansouret has said she is "revolted" by the gleeful reaction of many men in France to news the case in New York might fail.

Mr Koubbi told L'Express that he and his client had decided to press charges in mid-June, and that the timing of the decision was not linked to Mr Strauss-Kahn's US trial.

He had previously said it would not be filed until "later", to avoid any competition with the New York case against Mr Strauss-Kahn.

"I have always said that the French case and the American case ought not be linked," Mr Koubbi said on Monday.

Ms Banon is the god-daughter of Mr Strauss-Kahn's second wife, Brigitte Guillemette.

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[samuel]

Thai PM-elect Yingluck Shinawatra 'to form coalition'
04 July 11 11:34 GMT


The surprise runaway winner of Thailand's election, the Pheu Thai party, says it has agreed to form a coalition with four smaller parties.

The party - led by by Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra - won a clear majority with an estimated 265 seats.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has announced his resignation as leader of the Democrats, which won 160 seats.

The outgoing defence minister said the powerful army would accept the result.

Final results from Sunday's poll are due on Tuesday.

Ms Yingluck, who has no previous political experience, said Pheu Thai and four other parties had "agreed to work together to run the country and solve people's problems".

"The first urgent issue is how to achieve reconciliation," she said.

Thailand has been plagued by internal division since Mr Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006.

This election comes a year after protests against the current government left more than 90 people dead. Many of the demonstrators were supporters of Mr Thaksin.

'In good hands'

Critics of Ms Yingluck say she is too inexperienced and is simply a proxy for her brother.

But speaking from Dubai, where he lives in self-imposed exile to avoid a jail sentence for corruption, Mr Thaksin said Ms Yingluck's lack of experience could be an advantage, saying a "clean slate" was useful at times in politics.

Mr Thaksin told reporters he did not want to return to Thai politics as he had been with his party too long.

"I really want to retire," he said.

Mr Thaksin said he was proud of his sister and would give Pheu Thai "whatever advice they may need", but that the Thai people were "in good hands".

With nearly all votes counted, Ms Yingluck's Pheu Thai has a clear majority with 265 seats, while outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrats have 159.

The coalition will together have an estimated 299 seats, effectively controlling about 60% of parliament.

The election results pave the way for Ms Yingluck, a 44-year-old business executive, to become Thailand's first female prime minister and the fifth person to hold the post since her brother.

As the results emerged on Sunday night, she said it was "a victory of the people" and that her party was "ready to deliver on all of the policies that we have announced".

Thailand's markets rose on Monday morning, but business leaders have expressed concern over whether the country can afford the populist reforms which have been promised by Pheu Thai.

The party pledged to raise the minimum wage, provide development funds to rural villages, create a high-speed rail network and give every school child in the country a tablet computer.

The BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Bangkok says the coalition announcement is being seen as a clever move in Thailand, as it will make it easier for Ms Yingluck to push through reforms promised during her election campaign and create a sense of stability.

However, there are fears of further turbulence ahead for Thailand, our correspondent says, and concerns of how the influential military might react.

The outgoing Defence Minister, Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, said he had spoken to army leaders who said they would accept the result and had "never entertained any idea of doing anything that will damage the country".

The army chief has dismissed speculation of a military coup but, says our correspondent, Thailand's generals have made such promises before, and much depends on whether Mr Thaksin does decide to stay away.

To his supporters, he is a champion of the disadvantaged who was unconstitutionally forced from power by powerful elites, backed by the military.

To his critics, Mr Thaksin was a corrupt and authoritarian leader who manipulated gullible voters.

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[samuel]

In Hospital Report, Housekeeper’s Graphic Account of Attack
By JOHN ELIGON
Published: July 5, 2011

As soon as she entered Room 2806 of the Sofitel New York, a hotel housekeeper said, a naked Dominique Strauss-Kahn pushed her to the bed and, as she sat, began to sexually assault her. She freed herself, only to have him pull her toward the bathroom. After she fell to the ground, she said, he forced her again into a sexual act.


Versions of this narrative have been told in court and in various criminal documents since Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested in May on sexual assault charges.


But this is the most direct account of the housekeeper’s version of events to be offered so far. It comes from a report prepared by a counselor at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where the housekeeper was treated just hours after she said she was attacked, and where she related for one of the first times what happened in the hotel suite.

The report, which has been provided to prosecutors and defense lawyers, provides a counselor’s notes of the graphic story told by the 32-year-old Guinean housekeeper, whose credibility has since been called into serious question by prosecutors because of lies they say she told during her immigration application and at other times.

While prosecutors now express severe doubts about the strength of their case, this account is suggestive of a serious sexual assault, which led prosecutors to charge Mr. Strauss-Kahn with attempted rape and sexual abuse.

There are a couple of sentences in the report, however, that the defense could focus on, most notably one that could be interpreted as the housekeeper’s saying that after the alleged attack, she observed Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, getting dressed — something that would run counter to her later version of what happened.

Although the Manhattan district attorney’s office agreed last week to release Mr. Strauss-Kahn from house arrest, prosecutors said they still believed that there was evidence of a forcible sexual attack.

Most of their problems with the case, they said, had to do not with the woman’s account of the attack, but rather with inconsistencies in her life story — lies she told on her asylum application and tax returns; deposits that were made to a bank account in her name; and a conversation she had with a man in federal custody in Arizona.

The one major discrepancy that prosecutors have pointed out in the woman’s version of the attack is that in her grand jury testimony, she said she waited in the hallway for Mr. Strauss-Kahn to leave after the attack. But she has since told investigators that she cleaned a nearby room after the attack, according to the prosecution.

The account given to the rape counselor stands out for its detail.

According to the counselor’s notes, the woman said a room service attendant had told her that no one was in the suite. As soon as the housekeeper walked in, she told the counselor, a man, “naked, with ‘white hair,’ ” locked the door behind her and pushed her onto the bed.

He “put his penis into her mouth briefly,” the report said. She told him to stop and tried to get away, according to the report, but he pulled her toward the bathroom. He put his hands under her clothes and touched her crotch area, the report said. After she fell to the carpeted floor, according to the report, Mr. Strauss-Kahn again forced her to perform oral sex, grabbing her by the hair and controlling her head with force.

The woman’s lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, has since said the housekeeper suffered bruising to her vagina during the episode.

She spit onto the carpet once the sexual encounter was over, according to the report. Then, the report said, the patient “reports he got dressed” and “left the room, and that he said nothing to her during the incident.”

Those sentences raise the question of exactly where the woman was when Mr. Strauss-Kahn got dressed. If she was in the room, it would not be consistent with the two versions she has told investigators, both of which have her fleeing the room after the attack. It also raises the question of what communication they had with each other if Mr. Strauss-Kahn did not speak.

The lawyer William W. Taylor III, who along with Benjamin Brafman is representing Mr. Strauss-Kahn, declined to comment.

The report continues that the woman washed out her mouth with water. The woman also told her supervisor that there was blood on the bedsheets but that it did not belong to her, the report said. The woman was interviewed by Special Victims Squad detectives at the hospital and called her daughter, the report said.

Daniel R. Alonso, the chief assistant to the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., also declined to comment.

But in interviews over the weekend, prosecutors in the office have maintained that they have done what they are supposed to do, given the evidence they had at each step of the case.

“We’re doing our job,” said Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, the lead prosecutor on the Strauss-Kahn case. “We don’t get paid by indictment. We don’t get paid by convictions. We get paid to do the right thing.”

[samuel]

Ms Diallo revealed her identity and made media appearances last month in an effort to clear her name

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn accuser files civil

The hotel maid who has accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her has filed a civil lawsuit against him.

In the suit, which was filed in New York and seeks unspecified damages, Nafissatou Diallo alleges she was left humiliated, violated and degraded.

Mr Strauss-Kahn has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges and has been freed on bail.

His lawyers said the suit had no merit and vowed to contest it.

In a court filing, lawyers for Ms Diallo said Mr Strauss-Kahn "intentionally, brutally and violently sexually assaulted Ms Diallo and in the process humiliated, degraded, violated and robbed Ms Diallo of her dignity as a woman."

The filing says Mr Strauss-Kahn bruised her vagina, injured her shoulder, tore her underwear and violently grabbed the back of her head in the alleged 14 May attack.

Before the allegation Mr Strauss-Kahn, 65 and married, was seen as a leading candidate for the French presidency in the country's 2012 election.

He is due back in court 23 August.

Prosecutors have said DNA evidence ties Mr Strauss-Kahn to the attack in a room at the Sofitel Hotel in New York.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers say any sexual encounter would have been consensual and have said Ms Diallo had a financial motive to accuse Mr Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault.

They have seized on evidence that s Diallo lied in immigration proceedings in an effort to win asylum in the US, and a recording in which they say she discussed with a jailed friend how to profit financially from the incident.

"We have maintained from the beginning that the motivation of [Ms Diallo's lawyer Kenneth Thompson] and his client was to make money," Ms Strauss-Kahn's lawyers William Taylor and Benjamin Brafman said in a statement.

"The filing of this lawsuit ends any doubt on that question. The civil suit has no merit and Mr Strauss-Kahn will defend it vigorously."

[samuel]

French novelist Tristane Banon claims she was attacked by Mr Strauss-Kahn

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Nafissatou Diallo, shown with her lawyer Kenneth Thompson, has defended her case in the media

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Ms Diallo's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, says his client has been denied justice

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Strauss-Kahn case: NYC prosecutors seek to drop charges

22 August 2011 Last updated at 22:54 GMT


Prosecutors have asked a judge to drop a sexual assault case against former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

They told a New York judge they were "no longer convinced of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt".

The case - based on an accusation by hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo - crumbled in recent weeks over questions about her credibility and motives.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, was arrested in May accused of sexually assaulting the 32-year-old African immigrant.

In a filing in New York state court, prosecutors told a judge Ms Diallo had "not been truthful on matters great and small."

A judge is expected to rule on the motion on Tuesday.

If the case is dropped, Mr Strauss-Kahn would be free to return to France, though he also faces a civil lawsuit from Ms Diallo.

Reasonable doubt
In the court filing, prosecutors laid out in detail the case they had assembled against Mr Strauss-Kahn - and the doubts they quickly began having.

"The physical, scientific and other evidence establishes that the defendant engaged in a hurried sexual encounter with the complainant, but it does not independently establish her claim of a forcible, non-consensual encounter," the filing said
In addition, "evidence gathered during our post-indictment investigation severely undermined her reliability as a witness in this case".

Within weeks the case was called into question as prosecutors said there were inconsistencies in Ms Diallo's accounts of her background and of the alleged assault.

It was revealed that she had been recorded discussing the case with a jailed friend and appeared to refer to Mr Strauss-Kahn's wealth, which his supporters said pointed to a financial motive in her pursuit of the case.

Prosecutors also said Ms Diallo had not been truthful in tax documents, nor on an asylum application form in her account of a gang rape she said she suffered back in Guinea.

With the case resting entirely on the need to convince a jury that Ms Diallo was telling the truth, prosecutors said that if they were unable to believe her story beyond a reasonable doubt, "we cannot ask a jury to do so".

Speaking to reporters after a brief meeting with prosecutors at the court in Manhattan, Ms Diallo's lawyer Kenneth Thompson insisted that justice was not being done.

"Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has denied the right of a woman to get justice in a rape case. He has not only turned his back on this innocent victim but he has also turned his back on the forensic, medical and other physical evidence in this case."

Mr Thompson filed a motion asking the judge to disqualify Mr Vance's office from the case and to appoint a special prosecutor, alleging that Mr Vance's staff had mishandled the prosecution and leaked information to the news media that damaged the case.

Concerns
Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said they had insisted on their client's innocence since the beginning of the case.

"We also maintained that there were many reasons to believe that Mr Strauss-Kahn's accuser was not credible," William Taylor and Benjamin Brafman said in a statement.

"Mr Strauss-Kahn and his family are grateful that the district attorney's office took our concerns seriously and concluded on its own that this case cannot proceed further."

Authorities in Paris are still considering whether to press charges against him over an allegation by French writer Tristane Banon that he tried to rape her during a 2003 interview.

An international media frenzy erupted on 14 May when Ms Diallo told police that Mr Strauss-Kahn had confronted her naked as she entered a suite at the Sofitel Hotel in New York City, chased her and forced her to perform oral sex.

The 62-year-old IMF director was arrested that day on board an Air France jet and was later marched out of a New York police station in handcuffs.

Authorities in New York said they had DNA evidence showing a sexual encounter occurred and that Ms Diallo's account of the alleged assault was credible.

Mr Strauss-Kahn vehemently denied the accusation, and his lawyers said any sexual encounter between the two had been consensual.

'Inconsistencies'
Mr Strauss-Kahn had been touted as a leading contender to take on French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the April 2012 presidential elections.
After his arrest, he was forced out of his job as director of the International Monetary Fund and later placed under house detention.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was later freed from his restrictive bail conditions.

Ms Diallo then took the unusual step of giving media interviews, defending her allegations against Mr Strauss-Kahn.

On 8 August, she filed a civil suit against him.

An opinion poll released in July suggested two-thirds of French people did not want Mr Strauss-Kahn to be a candidate in the 2012 elections.

[samuel]

Protesters chanted slogans and waved placards outside the court

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The move came as prosecutors cited doubts over the credibility of his accuser, 32-year-old hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo.
Strauss-Kahn New York sexual assault case dismissed
23 August 2011 Last updated at 18:26 GMT

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: "I am relieved for my wife and my children"Continue reading the main story
Related Stories

What next for Strauss-Kahn?
What went right and wrong?
Accuser 'denied justice'
A New York judge has dismissed the sexual assault case against former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, was accused in May of attacking the African immigrant as she entered his hotel room to clean it.

The ruling means he is a free man, though he still faces a civil suit Ms Diallo filed this month.

"Our inability to believe the complainant beyond a reasonable doubt means, in good faith, that we could not ask a jury to do that," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told Judge Michael Obus.

'Hurried sexual encounter'
The dismissal of criminal charges at the New York State Supreme Court will take effect once the judge rules on an appeal against the move.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, considered a French presidential contender before the case, arrived for the hearing in lower Manhattan on Tuesday in a six-car motorcade with his wife Anne Sinclair.

Outside, about two dozen placard-waving protesters denounced the result, their cries audible from the packed courtroom on the 13th floor.

Ms Diallo claimed Mr Strauss-Kahn had confronted her in his luxury hotel suite in the city on 14 May and forced her to perform oral sex.
Prosecutors said DNA evidence had found that a "hurried" sexual encounter did occur between the two, but it did not establish Ms Diallo's claim that it was non-consensual.

In a statement released by his legal team on Tuesday, Mr Strauss-Kahn said: "These past two-and-a-half months have been a nightmare for me and my family.

"I want to thank all the friends in France and in the United States who have believed in my innocence, and to the thousands of people who sent us their support personally and in writing.

"I am most deeply grateful to my wife and family who have gone through this ordeal with me."

He added: "We will have nothing further to say about this matter and we look forward to returning to our home and resuming something of a more normal life."

'Rush to judgment'
Outside the court on Tuesday, Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, William Taylor, accused the media, police and prosecutors of a "collective rush to judgment".

"I want to remind you how uncritically the media examined this case from the beginning without even looking at the improbability of the story on its face," he said.

In court papers filed on Monday, Manhattan prosecutors said they did not feel at ease pursuing the case, citing deep concerns over Ms Diallo's credibility.
She "has not been truthful on matters great and small" and has an ability to present "fiction as fact with complete conviction," they wrote.

Medical and DNA evidence, meanwhile, was "simply inconclusive" as proof of a forced sexual encounter, they added.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's was forced from his job as director of the International Monetary Fund after his arrest on board an Air France jet in May.

But within weeks, prosecutors said there were inconsistencies in Ms Diallo's accounts of the alleged assault and of her background.

It was revealed that she had been recorded discussing the case with a jailed friend and appeared to refer to Mr Strauss-Kahn's wealth, which his supporters said pointed to a financial motive.

Prosecutors also said Ms Diallo had not been truthful in tax documents, nor on an asylum application form in her account of a gang rape she said she suffered back in Guinea.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was later freed from his restrictive bail conditions.

Ms Diallo then took the unusual step of giving media interviews, defending her allegations against him, and on 8 August, she filed a civil suit against Mr Strauss-Kahn.

The Frenchman's legal travails are not yet over: authorities in Paris are still considering whether to press charges against him over a claim by French writer Tristane Banon that he tried to rape her during a 2003 interview.

Ms Banon made the allegation after the Diallo case, saying that she feared no-one would have believed her beforehand.

[samuel]

Mr Strauss-Kahn left his rented Manhattan home Saturday afternoon

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn lands in France
4 September 2011 Last updated at 06:03 GMT


Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has arrived back in France from the US.

Mr Strauss-Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair landed at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport at around 05:05 GMT on board an Air France flight.

He had been in the US since his arrest in May on sex assault charges, which were dropped last month.

The 62-year-old, once seen as a possible French presidential contender, denied the allegations.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who resigned in the days after his arrest, had his passport returned last week.

Hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, who accused Mr Strauss-Kahn of trying to rape her in his hotel room, is pressing her claims in a civil lawsuit.

Second allegation
Mr Strauss-Kahn and his wife were mobbed by photographers as they left their rented home in Manhattan on Saturday afternoon got into a hired car bound for JFK airport.

It is thought that he boarded the same scheduled Saturday night Air France flight for Paris that he was arrested on in May, which led to a week in jail and then six weeks of house arrest.

A crowd of journalists has already gathered at Charles de Gaulle airport to meet him.

The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says that friends of Mr Strauss-Kahn say that he does, at some point, intend to explain what happened in the Sofitel Hotel room in May.

The case was dropped late last month at the request of prosecutors who had concerns about Ms Diallo's credibility.

With DNA evidence indicating a sexual encounter did occur between the two in a suite at the Sofitel Hotel in May, Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyers maintain it was consensual and prosecutors were unable to determine whether force had been used.

Mr Strauss-Kahn faces another sexual assault allegation when he returns to France after novelist Tristane Banon accused him of trying to rape her during an interview in 2002.

Ms Banon made the allegation after the Diallo case, saying that she feared no-one would have believed her beforehand.

The former IMF chief had been considered the Socialist Party's front-runner to take on French President Nicolas Sarkozy in presidential elections next year.

[samuel]

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Strauss-Kahn Concedes ‘Error’ in Sexual Encounter With Maid
By STEVEN ERLANGER and MAÏA de la BAUME
September 18, 2011


PARIS — Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Sunday that his sexual encounter with a New York City hotel chambermaid was “an error” and “a moral failure” he would regret his whole life, but not a criminal act.

In his first interview since his May 14 arrest on charges of attempted rape, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was uncomfortable, intermittently angry and sounded bitter, saying that he had wanted to run for the French presidency and had missed his “appointment with the

French people” because of his own actions.

“I wanted to be a candidate. I thought I could be useful. All that is behind me,” he said.

He accused the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, of lying about what happened between them, and accused a Paris novelist, Tristane Banon, of lying about what she said happened between them in 2003, which she has described as an attempted rape — a case still being investigated by the Paris prosecutor.

He called Ms. Banon’s allegations “imaginary and slanderous,” although according to press reports in L’Express of his testimony to the police, he did admit to having made a pass at her and trying to kiss her. But he insisted Sunday that he did not, as she claimed, throw her to the ground, try to undress her and put his hand in her underwear.

“In this encounter, there was no act of aggression or violence,” he said.

The interview on Sunday evening was carefully orchestrated and felt as if it had been almost rehearsed. Mr. Strauss-Kahn said what he wished, arranging to speak live to his wife’s close friend, the anchor Claire Chazal on TF1, the most popular French channel. Ms. Chazal also looked uncomfortable, her arms crossed, and was not aggressive in her questioning.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, did not describe what happened with Ms. Diallo, except to insist that the encounter did not involve violence, constraint or aggression. But he appeared to have been shaken by what happened afterward, saying that he was “afraid, very afraid” in the days after his arrest, in which the New York police hauled him off an airplane just minutes before it was to take off for Paris on May 14. “When you are caught in the jaws of this machine, you have the impression that it can crush you. I was humiliated before I could even say a word in my defense.”

In the end, the New York prosecutors decided not to bring a case against him, saying Ms. Diallo lacked credibility and had a history of fabrication.

Even as Mr. Strauss-Kahn admitted to his bad behavior, he did so with gritted teeth. The words were regretful but the tone was combative. The liaison with Ms. Diallo, who is suing him in a civil court in New York, “was not only an inappropriate relationship, but more than that, it was an error,” he said.

“I think it was a moral failing, and I’m not proud of it,” he continued. “It was a failing, a failing vis-à-vis my wife, my children and my friends, but also a failing vis-à-vis the French people, who had vested their hopes for change in me.”

He said: “I am not proud of it. I regret it infinitely. I have regretted it every day for the past four months, and I think I’m not done regretting it.”

But he did not discuss, nor was he asked, about the presumably consensual sexual relationship the police have said he had the night before with another woman, caught on the hotel’s video recorders.

And he gave vent to his anger with Ms. Diallo and his own theory that he might have been the victim of some plot to take advantage of his own moral failings. He said that he had not ruled out that the sexual act with Ms. Diallo and what followed “could be a trap,” he said. “A plot? We’ll see.” He spoke angrily about Ms. Diallo, suggesting that she was after money and saying, without much explanation, that the role of money in the American judicial system was “shocking.”

Now, he said, he would take time to reflect on his own future.Mr. Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, also commented on the continuing Greek financial crisis, for which emergency meetings were taking place on Sunday. He said that Greece’s large debt, which has been the initial cause of the long-running euro crisis, should be sharply reduced. The problem is that European actions, he said, are “too little, too late.” As for Greece, he said, “It’s necessary to recognize that it’s necessary to take the loss.” The debt had to be reduced “at any cost,” he said, “except at the cost of stagnation and recession.” He said he did not think the euro was in peril, but the situation was very serious.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s own love for luxury, including an expensive townhouse in Manhattan and a truffled pasta meal on his first night out of house arrest, had shocked many French, who do not like their Socialists to have too great a taste, at least in public, for lavish living. Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s third wife, Anne Sinclair, is extremely rich and bankrolled her husband’s bail and defense.

There was also criticism of the television station’s agreement to do the interview with Ms. Chazal, who did not recuse herself. The station rejected the criticism and said it was simply interested in the news value of the interview.

“It was an extremely well-achieved communication exercise, with carefully chosen moments of repentance and emotions,” said Christophe Barbier, a commentator and chief editor of the weekly magazine L’Express, after the interview.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn was not pushed very hard, he suggested, saying, “We will never know now what happened in that hotel room.”

Ms. Diallo’s French lawyer, Thibault de Montbrial, branded the interview “a public relations exercise, without any spontaneity, neither in the questions nor the replies — scripted down to each gesture.” A columnist at the left-leaning newspaper Libération, Jean Quatremer, spoke sarcastically of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s carefully modulated admissions. “He has been perfect,” Mr. Quatremer said. “He sounded like someone who had committed a nine-minute, small adultery.”

There were demonstrators outside the TF1 building who shouted “Shame on you!” at Mr. Strauss-Kahn. Most of them were women, and some carried signs saying, “When a woman says no, it’s no!” Another read: “What’s seduction for you?” A feminist group called “Le Barbe,” or the beard, known for ironic protests and wearing false beards at demonstrations, had called for protests “in support of the Great White Men and their virile traditions.”