Dominique Strauss-Kahn is being questioned by French police today in an investigation of a prostitution ring, including allegations his liaisons with prostitutes were paid for with embezzled funds.
Mr Strauss-Kahn arrived at a police station in Lille as scheduled shortly before 9am. He made no comment to a crush of waiting reporters and photographers.
The former managing director of the International Monetary Fund could be held in custody until Thursday morning. He could then be placed under formal investigation
Mr Strauss-Kahn (62) gave up his IMF post last year after being arrested in New York for sexually assaulting a hotel maid. Prosecutors dropped the case over concerns about his accuser's credibility.
The current investigation is focused on a prostitution ring that allegedly supplied clients of Lille's luxury Carlton hotel.
Police want to establish whether Mr Strauss-Kahn knew that women at sex parties he attended in Paris and Washington were prostitutes.
Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer Henri Leclerc has said his client had no reason to think they were. "People are not always clothed at these parties. I challenge you to tell the difference between a nude prostitute and a classy lady in the nude," Mr Leclerc recently told French radio.
Eight people, including two Lille businessmen close to Mr Strauss-Kahn and a police commissioner, have been arrested in the case, and construction firm Eiffage fired an executive suspected of using company funds to hire sex workers.
Using prostitutes is not illegal in France, but Mr Strauss-Kahn risks being charged if investigators decide he knew the women at the sex parties were prostitutes or that company funds were used to pay them.
While his wife Anne Sinclair has revived her career as a journalist with a new job as news editor at an upcoming French-language version of the Huffington Post, Mr Strauss-Kahn is living largely in the shadows.
Photographed occasionally out and about in Paris, recently in a scruffy dark grey anorak, he is starting to make a comeback on the international speech circuit but is otherwise rarely seen on the social circuit. He is often parodied on the popular Les Guignols television program that uses puppets to satirise politicians.
Mr Strauss-Kahn is portrayed as over-sexed skirt chaser always wearing a leopard-print bathrobe.
Attempted-rape accusations brought against Mr Strauss-Kahn last year by a Parisian writer were shelved by police in October. The New York maid is pursuing him in a civil action.
Agencies