The week at a glance...Europe

Lille, France

DSK’s pimp: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund, was back in French headlines this week after a top French police official was accused of procuring prostitutes for him in France and New York. The cop, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, allegedly ran a prostitution ring involving some underage girls, and Strauss-Kahn’s name has reportedly surfaced on a list of johns—although there’s no evidence Strauss-Kahn met any underage prostitutes. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer, Henri Leclerc, said his client wanted to talk to investigators to “end these dangerous and malicious insinuations.” Meanwhile, prosecutors said Strauss-Kahn had admitted to sexual assault of novelist Tristane Banon in 2003 but that he couldn’t be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired. They said there was insufficient evidence to try him on the more serious charge of attempted rape.

Frankfurt, Germany

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

Glass ceiling cracking: Germany’s top companies agreed this week to promote more women to management roles, in an effort to prevent the government from imposing a quota system to force the change. The 30 firms that make up the blue-chip DAX stock index each set individual goals for boosting the proportion of women in leadership positions over the next decade. Sporting-goods maker Adidas was the only company that agreed to boost the proportion of female executives to as high as 35 percent by 2015. Currently, women make up less than 4 percent of the membership on the boards of German companies. Critics said the voluntary plan did not clearly stipulate what level of management will count, and that its goals weren’t ambitious enough.