Dominique Strauss-Kahn Returns to France

Many in France may have assumed Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s innocence, but that doesn’t mean the former International Monetary Fund head was given a hero’s welcome home.

The Associated Press reports that the French economist returned to Paris Sunday on an early flight from JKF Airport in New York, smiling and waving as he stepped off the Air France flight.

The long delayed arrival — he was stopped from leaving the country by law enforcement in May to face accusations of attempted rape — will see Strauss-Kahn returning to the excitement of his political supporters, alongside disappointment from those who once considered him a sure contender for the presidency.

Some Socialist Party members greeted Strauss-Kahn’s return happily.

“I’m moved, I always believed in his innocence,” Socialist Party member Michele Sabban told French television, according to the AP. “I wanted very much for this to be over.“

Ohers in the public--who recent polling shows don't want him back in politics just yet--seem less enthused.

Strauss-Kahn was accused of attempted rape by New York hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo in May, and became immediately engulfed in an international scandal that ended his career at the top of the IMF and threw presidential ambitions for the Socialist Party head into disarray. Manhattan prosecutors later dropped the charges, as questions about the motivations of the maid surfaced.

But Diallo plans to pursue charges in a separate suit, and Strauss-Kahn’s return to France means he’ll face a new set of accusations from novelist Tristane Banon, the daughter of a socialist official who says he tried to rape her in 2003. Strauss-Kahn denies the claim.

Banon’s mother Anne Mansouret, expressed disdain for the “star”-like return of the former IMF head, but told the AP his return “is a good thing for my daughter’s complaint because he will have to answer to police.”