Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the Affaire du Carlton

THIS TIME, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is furious. It is one thing being pursued by the New York Post and the voracious London press, but now it's a French newspaper that's leading the charge. And it's pretty unlikely he's committed a crime.

Traditionally, given France's strict privacy rules, the Parisian papers tend to pull their punches when writing of "le grand monde" - the great and the good. Not this time.

Days after prosecutors said he would not be charged with sexually assaulting the French writer Tristane Banon, and two months after a New York court cleared him of attempting to rape the Manhattan Sofitel maid Nafissatou Diallo, the Journal du Dimanche has claimed that DSK was one of the clients of a prostitution ring based in Lille.

DSK has demanded that examining magistrates call him in for questioning and clear his name forthwith. His lawyer Frédérique Beaulieu said his client wanted "to put an end to these insinuations and extrapolations".

Even if Strauss-Kahn is found to have used prostitutes provided by the Lille ring, he will have done nothing illegal as long as they were not underage. Both the girls who claim to have serviced the former IMF chief are over 18.

So, while L’Affaire du Carlton – named after the four-star hotel in Lille – might prove another embarrassment for DSK, it seems likely that the force of the law will fall on a small group of burghers from the northern city better known until now as a Eurostar stop than a den of iniquity.

First among them is a police commissioner, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, who according to reports had hoped to be in charge of DSK's protection when he became French president (those were the days).

The Journal du Dimanche reported that not only did Lagarde organise an orgy for DSK in a luxury Paris hotel but that he accompanied prostitutes to New York while DSK was running the IMF in Washington.

Then there are the proprietor, director and public relations manager of the Carlton. They are understood to have been arrested and charged over the alleged prostitution racket. Contrary to some reports, the hotel has not been closed.

A Lille lawyer Emmanuel Riglaire has also been questioned by police, on suspicion of conspiring in the prostitution ring.

Finally there's the alleged pimp, Dominique Alderweireld, a 62-year-old nicknamed 'Dodo', who is said to have ties to brothels across the border in Belgium. He, too, has been arrested.

The 45-year-old friendship between Dodo and the Carlton's PR man Rene Kojfer appears to be central to the Affaire du Carlton. According to the Journal du Dimanche, Dodo procured the girls Kojfer then provided to hotel clients. Dodo is also said to have found the girls allegedly used by DSK.

According to the Daily Mail, some or all of these characters face charges of procuring prostitutes, criminal conspiracy and money laundering. Strauss-Kahn, on the other hand, is likely to walk away unscathed. Comme d’habitude. ·