Admiration for Anne Sinclair

Blogger Michel Garroté writing at drzz.info reveals the latest Harris poll on the DSK affair:

According to an interactive Harris poll, for the weekly journal VSD (Vendredi-Samedi-Dimanche), 58% of the French say they have a very good or rather good image of Anne Sinclair (wife of DSK), versus 33% who have a rather bad or very bad image of her. A majority of 54% say they understand the attitude adopted by Anne Sinclair during the New York legal proceedings involving her husband. Some 75% of the persons questioned feel that the adjective "strong" suits Anne Sinclair well. Seventy-two percent also judge her to be "courageous" and 70% "dignified".

There's still a lot of fighting ahead in French households!

Here are some readers' comments:

- Who knows… the way things are going… perhaps she too will seek the presidency.

- This poll says more about the morality, or rather the relative absence of morality, of the French people than it does about Mme Sinclair. Is it surprising that a good part of the French have forgotten the libertine habits of the Strauss-Kahn couple in certain Parisian clubs? The answer is no, since for a majority of people this fact (an open secret for a small circle of politicians and for the microcosm of the media) was hidden and did not surface until the revelations were made following the Sofitel affair.

Our American friends say: "It takes two to tango". The question is therefore: how is it that a woman like Anne Sinclair accepted that her husband could "go take a look elsewhere" for so many years? Far be it for me to place all the blame for her husband's indiscretions on Mme Sinclair, but rather than a strong dignified and courageous woman we should see her as a woman who feels guilty for having let things slide and for not having reacted at her husband's first indiscretion. Which probably would have averted a lot of problems for DSK stemming from his conduct as a "hot rabbit". She is also a woman who is guilty because of the bad example set for their children, that she has gone along with by standing by her husband 100% in this affair. But Mme Sinclair is not different from anyone else in this case. As the common expression says, "You cannot remake yourself". The Sofitel affair was bound to happen one way or another since the actors in this disaster know the script by heart!

The comment above implies that she participated herself in some wrong-doing. The author states that the "couple" (not just DSK) engaged in "libertine habits", unless I am interpreting his words too broadly. She participated, of course, by not being critical and by staying with him when it was clear he was out of control. But did she herself participate in libertine activities?

I have not come upon anything to corroborate this theory. Maybe her acceptance of her husband's seriously deviant behavior is enough to warrant the label "libertine"?

The photo above was taken in New York the day the District Attorney dismissed all charges. What struck me when I saw it was that no such demonstration took place in Avignon at the end of the trial of the rapists of Carpentras, the topic of my preceding post. Perhaps it is easier to protest the acquittal of a rich white man than to exhibit righteous indignation at the soft sentences for a group of brutal young immigrants.