DSK fallout - a new political morality

"Morality and politics, new requirements," headlinesLa Croix, which argues that the charges for attempted rape leveled against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former socialist party front-runner for the 2012 presidential elections, raise issues about the ethical criteria of the political class. This affair "poses the question of the quest for coherence between public and private life,” notes the Catholic daily. "From now on, it will be difficult for those who dream of high office to lay claim to it without displaying a greater modesty, a surer sense of equilibrium in both their projects and their behaviour." With regard to "a phenomenon which is not restricted to France,” La Croix points out that “blind populism, on the increase in Europe and elsewhere, feeds on dwindling confidence in the day-to-day behaviour of political elites. And virtue, a word that has gone out of fashion, could become the new pre-requisite" for political office.