He attained notoriety due to his involvement in several sex scandals. He served in that capacity until his resignation on 18 May , in the wake of an allegation that he had sexually assaulted a hotel maid ; the charges were later dismissed.
These accusations were seen as controversial in France, and prompted prominent conspiracy theories, as well as a debate on the role of the media in debating and determining a suspect's guilt ahead of conviction or legal proceedings having even been initiated. These legal cases led to him dropping out the French presidential election , where he had been the favorite to win the Socialist Party's nomination the party's eventual candidate, Francois Hollande , won the presidential election , [ 8 ] and put an end to Strauss-Kahn's nascent political career.
He then resumed his activities in the private sector, mainly advising governments on their sovereign debts. He is the son of lawyer Gilbert Strauss-Kahn. He and his parents settled in Morocco in , but after the earthquake moved to Monaco , [ 11 ] where his father practised law. The family later [ when?
Strauss-Kahn has been married four times and has five children. The marriage lasted sixteen years and produced three children β Vanessa , Marine , and Laurin β but ended in divorce. Strauss-Kahn married his second wife, Brigitte Guillemette, a public relations executive, in His third wife married [ citation needed ] was Anne Sinclair , a popular French journalist and heiress, the granddaughter of art dealer Paul Rosenberg.
This marriage barely survived Strauss-Kahn's tenure at the IMF and the highly publicized allegations of sexual assault in In , the press announced Sinclair and Strauss-Kahn's separation. From to , Strauss-Kahn lectured at the University of Nancy -II, first as an assistant, and later as assistant professor, before taking a position at the University of Nanterre. Upon resigning from Lionel Jospin 's government he resumed his academic duties, teaching economics at Sciences Po from until his appointment to the IMF in The next year, he was appointed to the Commissariat au plan Planning Commission as commissaire-adjoint.
