Forget what the New York prosecutor says about Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The doubters in France are legion and the country is abuzz with conspiracy theories. Did Strauss-Kahn bring on his own ruin at a luxury Manhattan hotel? Or did his political enemies in France set him up in a sinister plot to undo the known womanizer who was a top contender to become France's next president? From the moment that Strauss-Kahn's arrest for the alleged sexual assault of a chambermaid flashed around the world,doubts emerged in France. A week later,with evidence still under wraps and the accused and the accuser silent,speculation abounds. A poll Thursday suggested that a majority of French,57 percent,think Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a plot. In a country where low blows pepper the political culture,where people think politicians will do almost anything to keep their perks and where President Nicolas Sarkozy's approval ratings are sinking relentlessly,a plot against the increasingly powerful IMF chief seems plausible to many. "The trap,you cannot not think of it," Cooperation Minister Henri de Raincourt conceded on Radio France International a day after the arrest. "But we must let justice follow its course without any prior assumptions." Strauss-Kahn himself is reported to have voiced fears of a setup involving an alleged rape victim last month with a journalist. And then there are the precedents. Former conservative Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is now in a slander trial that grew out of accusations he had wind of a dirty tricks campaign against Sarkozy in 2004 and failed to stop it. Sarkozy has said he believes the scheme was meant to upend his 2007 presidential bid. Doubts are still raised over the 1994 suicide,in his office at the presidential Elysee Palace,of the man considered former Socialist President Francois Mitterrand's closest counselor,Francois de Grossouvre. And there are those who wonder,nearly two decades later,who really aimed the gun in the 1993 suicide of former Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy. Strauss-Kahn's fall from grace on May 14 was brutal. It came minutes before his trans-Atlantic flight for a meeting,as chief of the International Monetary Fund,with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The 62-year-old Socialist who led popularity polls for next year's presidential race insists he is innocent and has resigned from his job at the IMF to fight the charges. He was indicted by a grand jury on charges including criminal sexual abuse and attempted rape for allegedly attacking a 32-year-old maid,a West African immigrant,in his suite at the Sofitel.
