PARIS - Was Dominique Strauss-Kahn sincere and humble, or unconvincing and laughable?
French reaction was divided Monday after the first public appearance in France by Strauss-Kahn, a French presidential hopeful until his May 14 arrest on accusations of sexual assault by a New York hotel maid.
The only agreement within the political class was that there would be no quick return to politics for the man known here as DSK, and even some fellow Socialists said it was time for France to move on without him.
Strauss-Kahn told TF1 on Sunday night that his encounter with Sofitel housekeeper Nafissatou Diallo was a "moral failing" that he deeply regrets but insisted there was no violence.
The charges against him in New York were dropped but Strauss-Kahn confirmed that fallout from his arrest put him out of the running for the 2012 race. He also was forced to leave his post as chief of the International Monetary Fund.
Strauss-Kahn's TV appearance drew 13.4 million viewers to their TV screens -- more than a fifth of the French population and 47 per cent of the audience share, according to Mediametrie, which measures media markets.
The last time such a high score was reached was in November 2005, during the fiery unrest that gripped France's troubled housing projects.
Political rivals and lawyers for Diallo criticized Strauss-Kahn for failing to give his version of what happened in the hotel room where the maid -- who is bringing a civil suit against him -- claims she was attacked as she entered to clean.
"Mr. Strauss-Kahn distorted by transforming (the interview) into a magic sponge that cleanses him of everything that happened in New York ... ," Thibault de Montbrial, Diallo's lawyer in Paris, told Associated Press Television News.
"We look forward to greeting him in our offices and asking him the questions the reporter failed to do," Diallo lawyers Kenneth Thompson and Douglas Wigdor who are bringing the civil suit in New York told The Associated Press in a written reaction to Strauss-Kahn's TV appearance. They dismissed his TV time as a "desperate ploy" for public sympathy.
Ploy or not, it worked for Socialist Party stalwart, Jack Lang, a former culture minister.
"Personally I thought he was remarkable," Lang said in an interview with APTN. "I thought he was excellent -- sincere, clear, humble ... On the legal procedure that had accused him, on the lifting of the charges, on a whole series of questions he was, I repeat, clear and concrete."
However, conservative party leader Jean-Francois Cope said Strauss-Kahn put in a "sad and laughable" performance, adding "it's time to turn the page."
Even other Socialists, deeply embarrassed by the affair, looked ahead to an era sans DSK as they prepared to pick a candidate through a public vote in October.
Segolene Royal, who ran against President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 and is among six seeking the Socialist party's candidacy, said the Strauss-Kahn interview "allowed us to close something that has occupied us for too long."
It's now time to "turn the page" and "raise the level of political debate," she said on RTL radio.
Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon wrapped up his party's reaction.
"It was useful, and indispensable, that he admit this fault. Now, it is useful and important that we move on to other things," he said.
