IMF boss plays mum on French presidency

If Dominique Strauss-Kahn is tempted to make an early exit from the International Monetary Fund to run for president of France, he will have found plenty of encouraging signs during a stay in Paris this week.

The next election is not until 2012 and Strauss-Kahn would have many hurdles to overcome before even getting his name on a ballot paper, but a spate of favourable opinion polls put him at the centre of political attention during his flying visit.

“It’s always nice to find that your compatriots are fond of you, but that is not my focus today,” Strauss-Kahn said in an interview published by the newspaper Le Figaro on Wednesday.

Conveniently for Strauss-Kahn, IMF rules prevent him from speaking about French politics.

This makes it easy for him to play a waiting game, biding his time to see what the other players do before deciding whether to take a dangerous gamble.

A CSA poll published on November 6 suggested that the Socialist Strauss-Kahn could beat right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy in a run-off in 2012 by 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

He was the only opposition figure who stood a chance, according to the poll.

But his term as managing director of the IMF runs until October 2012, several months after the election, so he would have to quit his job early -- a plan that could go horribly wrong if he failed to clinch the Socialist Party ticket.

Real fear

It is a very real fear for Strauss-Kahn, who was trounced by Segolene Royal in Socialist primaries in 2006.

She went on to lose to Sarkozy in the May 2007 presidential election, and in November that year Strauss-Kahn went to the IMF.

It was a risky career move for the former economy minister, as the Fund was abhorred by many French voters who saw it as a bastion of American-style free market orthodoxy.

But the global financial crisis changed all that.

By steering the IMF through the turmoil of 2008 and 2009, advocating fiscal stimulus rather than budget cuts, Strauss-Kahn gained not only worldwide prestige but credibility at home.

“Faced with a crisis that the French public feels on a daily basis, Strauss-Kahn’s competence on economic matters is more and more appreciated,” said Francois Miquet-Marty, head of the Viavoice polling firm that has charted his rising popularity.