Unpopular president can say bon voyage to the IMF chief's election chances but his own approval ratings remain abysmal
Woken to the news that his greatest rival had been arrested on attempted rape charges, Nicolas Sarkozy did what he does best to show he was unflustered and calm. He went for an early morning jog. But he is not thought to have worn his famous New York police department T-shirt.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the pollsters' favourite and Sarkozy's key challenger, but his apparent elimination from the race does not mean the French president will automatically win in 2012.
The deeply unpopular Sarkozy, who once styled himself as the great reformer, is accused of massively disappointing France, favouring the rich, doing nothing to help the struggling middle and lower classes, dividing society, stigmatising Muslims and damaging the standing of the presidency with his personal foibles.
His approval ratings have dropped below one-third of the electorate and his re-election bid will be tough.
His centre-right UMP party is squabbling and divided. The far-right Marine Le Pen is a serious threat – polling high and threatening to knock the mainstream right or left out of the final-round runoff.
Le Pen, who likes to set herself apart from the ruling political class, is expected to benefit from the DSK scandal. New centrist candidates, such as the former minister Jean-Louis Borloo, are also threatening to eat into Sarkozy's vote.
Whoever the Socialists choose to replace the one-time favourite Strauss-Kahn, the New York hotel allegations are a huge difficulty.
Until now, the left had hoped to run a campaign easily picking apart the loathed personal failings of Sarkozy: his bling-bling tastes, his vaunting of his private life, his unpresidential demeanour.
This will now be almost impossible. While sex assault charges hang over Strauss-Kahn it will mean any attack on Sarkozy's behaviour will seem trifling in comparison and easily batted back.
One government minister told Le Monde: "There's a kind of jubilation because these Socialist types haven't stopped lecturing us on morals and virtue for years."
Ministers and Élysée advisers were ordered on Monday to publicly respect Strauss-Kahn's presumption of innocence, not to say France had been humiliated by the affair and certainly not to be seen to rejoice.
Several political figures on left and right suggested the possibility of the Strauss-Kahn scandal being a plot or a trap that directly benefits Sarkozy.
But even in the president's entourage, the election race now seemed wide-open with no certainties.
Some on the right felt the DSK scandal had come too soon. If it had been at the end of the campaign, it would have left Sarkozy with a clear run, but now it simply opened the course for any permutation of new candidates on the left and centre – mostly unknown quantities.
There are two initial Socialist favourites to run. François Hollande, polling high, is the jovial self-styled "ordinary guy" and social democrat.
But the party leader Martine Aubry seems to threaten Sarkozy the most – as a woman steeped in local leftwing politics she is the opposite of the president.
Aubry's deputy, Harlem Désir, insisted the party had not been "decapitated or weakened".
The Socialists will hold urgent talks on Tuesday to decide how to proceed with their primary race to choose a candidate, due to begin next month.