DSK arrest doesn’t spell success for Sarkozy

Before being arrested in New York for rape, Dominque Strauss-Kahn wasn’t just the Managing Director of the IMF. He was also the frontrunner in next year’s French presidential election. In virtually every poll since last summer, Straus-Kahn had posted big leads: both against his fellow Socialists in the primary and against Nicolas Sarkozy in the general.

So you might have thought that the trouble that has befallen DSK would improve Sarkozy’s chances of being re-elected in 2012. Certainly the rape charges make Strauss-Kahn very unlikely to run, and much less likely to win even if he did, but the latest polling suggests it’s not Sarkzoy who benefits at his expense. Rather, it’s the other prominent Socialist candidates: François Hollande and Martine Aubry.

Strauss-Kahn had led the primary polling by around 20 points, with Hollande and Aubry effectively tied for second. In the latest polls, with Strauss-Kahn removed from the running, it is François Hollande who gains the most: he now leads Aubry by around 15 to 20 points.