Is the “Perp Walk” Anti-French?

The French are shocked by the “perp walk” or “perpetrator walk” — the fact that the police complacently let suspects be photographed, handcuffs on their wrists, with disregard for the presumption of innocence.

“I admire American democracy but I know that the American judicial machinery can tend to be an infernal machine. Whatever the nature of the facts, nothing can justify a man being treated with this contempt and this violence,” said Jack Lang.

According to the former minister, an aspect of this is Francophobia. “It is not unthinkable — when one knows the highly politicized American system — that there was, on the part of the judge, an attitude intending to make a Frenchman pay.”

The “perp walk” is an institution of the American police force. Initially, only serious offenders were shown. Since former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the NYPD has also used it for white-collar crime. The NYPD is the only one that calls photographers to invite them to the parade. (Elsewhere, photographers must hang around waiting).

As the [Washington] Post’s columnist Eugene Robinson says, politicians rarely come out unscathed (except former Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry): “A perp-walk photo is the kind of thing no politician recovers from. Well, no politician except former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry.”

In any case, the DSK case will not have helped bridge the transatlantic gap.

The French view the American procedure with horrified incomprehension. The Americans (sorry, the “Anglo-Saxons”) jump on the French media-political system with generalized attacks.

The Americans are not as devastated, of course, as the French. On the conservative side, they think that the IMF should have been more circumspect when it passed the sponge over the 2008 incident involving Hungarian economist Piroska Nagy (Revenge? The details of the case emerged in The New York Times, to which one of her friends spoke).

Further to the right, Ron Paul believes that this entire case shows that international institutions like the IMF only enrich officials: “These are the kinds of people who are running the IMF, and we want to turn the world’s finances and the control of the money supply [over] to them?”

Some defend DSK’s role at the IMF. This is the case with Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation, who pays tribute to the way he tried to limit the effects of unbridled capitalism: “One of the few major economic gladiators in the world to defend the rights and privileges of people.”

Commentators invariably point out that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the man who manages $3 billion at the IMF and was staying privately “in a $3,000 per night suite.” No matter that the IMF published the allowed expenses or that he might simply have received an upgrade.*

Jon Stewart could not help but joke about the irony of seeing the IMF “pay” Africa once again: “It’s like he’s posing for his own editorial cartoon!”

*IMF’s clarification: “Thе Sofitel іѕ nοt οn thе list οf Nеw York hotels, whісh аrе generally standard business hotels,” the IMF ѕаіd. “At present, thе maximum hotel rate іn Nеw York fοr staff οn official business іѕ $386 a night, including tax and service charges.”