PARIS — Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former head of the International Monetary Fund whose sexual exploits cost him a shot at the French presidency, has been working as a lobbyist in France for cigarette maker Philip Morris, Le Journal du Dimanche reports.
The French weekly cites anonymous sources linked to the U.S. tobacco giant who say Strauss-Kahn (DSK) has helped the company try to convince French lawmakers to reject a proposed law that would introduce generic cigarette packaging. DSK organized a meeting between the head of Philip Morris France and a figure close to the center-left government two months ago.
DSK has spent the past four years successfully fighting criminal charges both in the U.S. and France linked to his outsized sexual appetite. Though he hit Twitter for the first time last June and raised eyebrows when it emerged that he was consulting for Russian banks and Serbian hardliners, the former French Finance Minister has kept a mostly low professional profile.
Le Journal du Dimanche quoted a DSK friend as saying that the former politician doesn’t sign contracts with the French “to avoid any polemics,” though the work for Philip Morris France could have been arranged in other ways.
DSK is himself not a regular cigarette smoker, though he has been known to occasionally enjoy a pipe.