May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund who had been considered a possible French presidential candidate next year, was pulled from an Air France flight in New York yesterday and held for questioning about an alleged sexual assault, a police spokesman said.
New York Police Department spokesman Brian Sessa said the alleged incident took place at a Manhattan hotel, and Strauss- Kahn would likely be charged today after being held overnight at a police precinct.
Strauss-Kahn, 62, was scheduled to attend a meeting of euro area finance ministers in Brussels. The May 16 meeting will take place as officials discuss the possible increase of a 110- billion ($155-billion) loan package to Greece amid concerns the country may be unable to return to markets to finance its debt next year.
"For the fund, this is terrible news at a time when its leadership needs to portray stability, wisdom, and confidence," Bessma Momani, a professor in the department of political science at the University of Waterloo in Canada, who specializes in the IMF and its policies, said in an e-mail.
The New York Times reported the incident occurred at the Sofitel New York, 45 West 44th Street, in Midtown Manhattan. The newspaper said a female employee at the hotel reported the alleged assault.
IMF spokesman William Murray had no immediate comment. Police said they didn't immediately know if Strauss-Kahn had hired a lawyer to represent him. They said he doesn't have diplomatic immunity.
French Race
Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister and member of France's opposition Socialist Party, has consistently been among the most popular possible candidates to contest France's 2012 presidential election, opinion polls show.
President Nicolas Sarkozy would have trailed Strauss-Kahn by 5 percentage points in the first round of the presidential voting if the election had been held at the end of last month, a CSA poll for 20 Minutes newspaper, BFM Television and RMC radio showed April 28.
Strauss-Kahn, whose term at the IMF expires next year, over the last several months has declined to say whether he was planning to run for president. The vote will be held in April and May 2012.
This is the second time since he took the helm of the IMF in November 2007 that Strauss-Kahn has faced allegations of misconduct.
In 2008, he had a relationship with Piroska Nagy, a female economist at the IMF, who quit in August of that year. An investigation by the IMF board, released in October 2008, concluded that while he had made a "serious error of judgment," he shouldn't be fired.
Apologizes to Family
Strauss-Kahn apologized to his staff and family, which includes his third wife, French television journalist Anne Sinclair, and four children from his previous marriages.
"For fund critics and challengers of Western leadership in international financial institutions, this is emblematic of poor judgment and may further motivate them to call for serious changes in management," Momani said.
Last month, officials from the Group of 24, which includes Brazil, China and Mexico, repeated a call for "an open, transparent, merit-based process" for choosing the heads of the World Bank and IMF, "without regard to nationality." The IMF job is traditionally held by a European, while an American leads the World Bank.
Strauss-Kahn took the helm of the IMF in November 2007, following his loss in the primaries of the French Socialist Party ahead of the 2007 presidential elections.
Restores Relevance
Strauss-Kahn, who succeeded Spain's Rodrigo Rato, has helped reshape the agency's mission and restore its relevance. When he arrived, its emergency lending dropped to $58.7 million in 2006 from $66.4 billion in 2002. Among his first moves there was to cut about 400 jobs.
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