Shh..la vie privée

France is an amazingly tempting location.  The pure beauty of the country is truly astonishing, then you look around and the people take on the luminous traits of their location.  With such beauty comes a certain amount of temptation, which is perhaps the main reason that the sexual revolution in the 19th Century was centered in Europe.  How those temptations are expressed can be public or private and there are certain individual freedoms and rights to privacy that one should have, what you do in your own time (consensual) is absolutely your business and you have the right to keep it private.  There are many laws and regulations in most countries that protect these privacies, some are right some are wrong, some focus on individual privacy and some concentrate on restricting freedom of expression.

In Dominique Strauss-Kahn's case, France developed his wild sexual habits and for years he blurred the lines of interoffice relationships and inappropriate professional conduct, but with old age comes a certain lack of power or his habits are not as appealing as they once were.  His recent charges (there were a few in the past in France) were done on American soil, where privacy laws are not the same and apprehension of the accused are typcially publicized. Recent debate has been centered on how the American judicial system differs from the French, one that is deeply rooted in Napoleonic Code, a code that conducts many legal practices behind closed doors.

While I believe that a certain amount of privacy is only right in cases such as this to protect everyone involved, I think that it is not a matter of the American judicial system, it is more of a matter of the culture and what people in the press choose to publicise.  The press generally publishes pieces of interest to increase attention, the general interests of those in France and those in America are pretty different.  French tend to operate in a 'down-low' fashion, which reminds me of a few years ago when President Clinton was facing impeachment for his sexual habits and the French amasement that a country would take steps to discredit a sitting president and publicise sexual affairs.  In the Strauss-Kahn case, the American public does find it interesting and feel that the public has a right to know who the potential criminals so that they can individually protect themselves.  If he has a problem with the fact that such things are publicised, it is a problem that comes with the territory and Strauss-Kahn is a pretty smart man and knew this.

As for the French thinking that the American judicial system is a circus compared to their own they may be right, but privacy and the publicity around this case are not exclusive to the judicial system.  Culture and behaviours in France and America are different, with different beliefs and interests of what to publicise and the restrictions of individual privacy to protect the public.  Americans are a little more in your face, and for cases such as this one, I find it more appealing than closed doors.