>> welcome do our program, tonight the story that is in the headlines of papers across the world, the arrest of dominique moyes the directing director of the imf we begin with dan abrams and adam gopnik. >> my sources tell me that it is going to be more likely the latter, which is now that they have dna evidence, they have physical evidence, i think the defense is stuck. >> and they might say we are just telling the truth. >> but i think their options are limited based on the physical evidence to say that, yes, something happened there, but it wasn't criminal, it wasn't forced. >> earlier today i covered the same story with three people watching it closely from paris, steven erlanger of the new york times, dominique moisi and natalie nougayrede, the diplomatic correspond democratic for french newspaper lamons. >> i think it is true there are

different reactions in france and i think the reaction from the concern about the women who may have been his victim only came out quite belatedly, i mean it was literally almost a day and a half before some public commentaries starting say well maybe we should be expressing some concern and, you know, empathy for this woman and not just be scandal lized about how he was dealt with by the american police. >> and finally this evening, she has been on every television show from oprah to the today show, she has written a book cause vegans it is about how good eating can change your health. >> i started thinking that if i amed not going to be a hypocrite i ought to start looking into hohow food is produced and wheni saw how it is produced it did not sit right with me, meat particularly, meat, dairy. >> rose: cows taken to slaughter. >> exactly. >> the extraordinary and the

obsession with saving her life when we continue. >> funding for charlie rose was provided by the following: but this i't just a hollywood storyline. it's happening every day, all across america. every time a storefront opens. or the midnight oil is burned. or when someone chases a dream, not just a dollar. they are small businesswners. so if you wanna root for a real hero, support small business. shop small. additional funding provided by these funders: captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose.

>> rose: tonight we look at the scandal surrounding dominique strauss kahn the director of the international monetary fund, he played a key role in mobilizing financial aid for greece, ireland and portugal during their debt crisis, some nought he had a real chance of being the president of france. he is being held without bake at likers island. >> he was change with seven counts .. stemming from allegation also he sexually assault add housekeeper. >> his lawyers say he will plead not guilty. >> he is expected to appear in court on friday when he will learn if a grand jury has voted to indict him, this is not the first time he has faced controversy in 2008 he was strayed by the imf over possible abuse of a power charges resulting from a brief affair with a colleague, an independent inquiry found the relationship was consensual but warned him against any further misconduct. >> joining me now in new york adam gopnik, dan abrams, with abc news, i am pleased to have

them here. what do you have to say? >> i just got in from paris to do this program, and you guys are much closer to it in both terms of the french american difference in sensen'ts as well as where it stands. give me a sense of where it stands as we talk. >> well in the american media, first of all, it has been splashed all over the new york headlines, right? in new york this is the story, the post and the daily news and all of the local tabloids have been waiting for, because it has got a little bit of everything, as a legal matter, there were some delays, this weekend, meaning the defense team had thought they would be able to immediately get in front of a judge and get some of this resolved by sunday. didn't happen. go to monday. >> rose: why didn't it happen? >> well because there were a number of issues that needed to be resolved, and a number of questions. in particular dna evidence that had to be gathered he, et cetera, and by monday, the defense team still thinks we will get our guy out on bail. i know he can't leave the

country and will probably have a monitoring device in some way, shape or form, we think if we put up enough money we will be able to get him out. doesn't happen. they go to court and the judge says, no bail for now, and then we will see what happens when we have our next hearing on friday. >> rose: tell me about the defense attorneys and tell me what you know about the judge. >> ben brafnan is one of the lead defense attorneys one to the best defense attorneys in the country. >> rose: as good as it gets in the courtroom? >> and the prosecutors think so which is a better testament than my own assessment. he has done a lot of the highest profile cases out there, not a showman, does a lot of federal cases as well, and i think this judge has demonstrated that she is not going to be pushed around, in the sense that, you know, people will say in high profile cases that defendants get the benefit of the doubt, they are treated easily, it is actually just the opposite which

is in the highest profile cases, the last thing a judge wants is for people to say, you treated him softly. >> rose: you are in the tank. >> anything from lindsay lohan to this case because i think if he hadn't been a high profile person he would have had a better shot of getting bail at this point. >> rose: so what happens next. >> he is in rikers island? >> right. and he is taking great care, single cell, my time he leaves the cell he has someone accompanying him so they are not going to let anything happen to him while she in rikers island. >> remember it is generally a place you go inbetween, it is a place you go pending trial, it is a place -- so that is where he is now. friday is going to be the next hearing and the focus of the defense is going to be try to get him out on bail and my sources close to the defense team tell me that they are working on a bail package they hope will get him released. >> rose: what i read is they will argue programs and whether you can confirm this or not i don't know, that they may very well be putting together an

argument it was consensual? >> it is going to be one of two things, it was either going to be, never happened, i wasn't there, i don't know what they are talking about, or yes, i was there, something happened, and we had some sort of consensual something. whatever tha that incident was,d my sources tell me that it is going to be more likely the latter, which is now that they have dna evidence, they have physical evidence, i think that the defense is, stuck and they might say we are just telling the truth but i think their options are limited based on the physical evidence to say that, yes, something happened there, but it wasn't criminal. it wasn't forced. and my understanding is that is what you are going to see. as the defense of this case moves forward, look what is going to happen is what happens in every sexual assault case, which is the defense is going to as much as possible put the accuser under the microscope and the prosecutors are going to do the same to him by looking at

every past incident he has been involved in to try to demonstrate that this is a pattern of behavior. >> rose: so you know france and you know the united states and you have learned in new york. give me your sense of how you see the important aspects of this other than the things we just went through. >> three things, charlie strike me. first, it is an open secret and i am sure you spot it and heard this in paris this morning that, strauss kahn has this as a feature, a problem in his life, he seems to be an extraordinarily kind of strong, centrist pragmatic, intelligent man, why isn't he running for president last time? and people would tell you, he has various personal issues and they would cloak it or not cloak it one way or another. i also think it is true to say and you may have experienced this in paris but this is certainly kind of backwash i get from phone calls and e-mail and reading nobody ever thought of him in this kind of light as someone who would assault a maid

in a hotel. >> rose: they call him a seducer but it is another thing to be violent. >> yes, if that happened that doesn't seem to fit what people imagined of him. now we all know that people, men in power can do things we don't find imaginable more easily than we think we can and we are all shocked afterwards. that is one thing. i think the second thing about it is that people in france are genuinely startled and shocked even by the perp walk all of that kind of shaming aspect of american justice. >> rose: in fact there is a last against it, don't they? they believe it suggests guilt? >> that's right. in fact they changed the language in french criminal law >> that's right. in fact they changed the language in french criminal law in order just to make that distinction. and i think that it's easy to say oh, well, they're just trying to protect the wealthy and powerful and there's always an element of that.

but i genuinely think the idea of privacy in france, the idea that your private life should be protected even at the expense of transparency is an important one rape is rape. i don't know anyone in france who doesn't say that rape is rape and inexcusable and not imaginable as a thing you can say they're there about. but the deeper principle that human beings are morally distinguishable from tropical fish. that transparency is not absolute good. that we should have places to hitd, that's part of it. >> rose: you know i was there in paris this morning and taped a program which we'll see later some french journalists is the idea that they talk about that perhaps there should have been more journalistic talk about this notion of strauss-kahn because he knew it, he knew he was going to experience it when he went into the campaign and therefore maybe that reporter should have been

able to speak more directly to this issue. >> maybe they should have but french libel law, french defamation law and laws on privacy make it extremely difficult to report something as a rumor. the way they work in the france is that they have a very low bar of damages. in other words, that's not how you get paid out and it makes very easy to have retractions. they insist on retractions. >> and the key is the distinction between flander and rapist. >> rose: exactly. >> because the reputation in the public has been philanderer, his wife has been out there publicly defending even his philandering. but when you talk about something like this-- and, of course, there is no this other allegation from a french journalist who is saying that something similar happened to her in 2002--. >> rose: and her mother who was a member of the socialist party told her not to file a complaint even though she went on television and talked about it. >> that's right. but didn't name him at the time. and you look at that and that's

something that's very relevant to hear and something that i think to answer your question is directly relevant to his qualifications to serve as a political leader. but in france from what i understand there's much more acceptance of this whole notion of, oh, yes, he's married but come on! he does a little this, he does a little that. >> i think everybody can make a distinction, make the same moral distinctions in france that we make here. >> it is the same... >> well, here's the difference. mitterrand had two families. he had one official family and he had a second family and that was kept private throughout his presidency. but the truth was it didn't have a political dimension. he didn't rape anybody. he didn't compel anybody. it was seen as part of his private life and i think i am sufficiently frenchiphied to think that that was completely reasonable. >> rose: go ahead. >> but that's very different from saying that you have a right to assault somebody.

and i don't know anybody in france who would make the case that assault is acceptable when it's done by somebody for sexual... >> rose: i don't think anybody anywhere makes that case. let me talk about what happened here in terms of the timeline. there's some difference there, is there not compared to what was said and... >> there's a lot of facts that came out early on that are turning out not to be the case. for example, one of the key elements was that he had supposedly rushed out of the hotel room so quickly that he'd forgotten his cell phone and other personal items in the room. that was one of the big things people said, he was jumping on the plane to get out of town. turns out that really wasn't the case. meaning he had called to inquire if he had left his cell phone. my understanding is he actually didn't leave his cell phone at the hotel. he had had lunch with his daughter after the alleged incident occurred. >> rose: so his daughter confirmed that as far as we know? >> i'm not sure. the defense is saying it so i would assume if the defense is saying it his daughter will confirm it. and then got on the plane.

that's a different scenario than the sort of o.j. simpson running to get on the... sweating at the airport to make the next plane >> get out of town. >> right. but, look, he was still on a plane, there's been reports about phone call he is made to his daughter, whether he was concerned or not. that's the sort of stuff that we're going to have to see what happens. but a lot of the early information-- as is the case in many high-profile investigations, wasn't necessarily... >> rose: you were a prosecutor, right? >> no. lawyer, not a prosecutor. >> rose: what would be the thing if you were the lawyer you would most want him to do now? >> if you're his lawyer, the most important thing is to understand the facts as to what happened, understand the context. he probably wants to explain... because if you think about the facts in this case, either way they're hard to believe. let's assume...

>> rose: it's a stunning thing about this case. >> if you assume for a moment that he's guilty, he walks out of the shower naked, the housekeeper comes in and he assaults her. she think it is room is empty. she comes in the room and whatever transpires but very quickly... and you look at it from the other point of view, if it was somehow consensual, if he walked out of the shower naked and she sees him and decides that she wants something to happen, either way the idea of the head of the i.m.f. either having a consensual sexual relationship with a housekeeper who accidentally walked into the room or the head of the i.m.f. sexually assaulting a housekeeper who happened to walk into the room... >> it is either a tragic compulsion or criminal compulsion, one or the other. and they're both difficult to square with somebody who operates in the world. and we know from history and every novel ever written that people are capable of acting in wildly irrational ways we don't

know that happened here. >> you always see a defense in a case like this, i would never be so dumb and yet in trial after trial the defendants were so dumb. so beyond that whatever comes out in terms of guilt or innocence... unless they argue someone proves that he was set up, it's very, very difficult for him to be on the same trajectory he had in french politics. >> i think that's important and everyone needs to do that, but i think it's true is that as dan says, whatever happened doesn't seem like kind of behavior that you would want from somebody who's going to be the president of the country. and i think that there are people in france who will say... it's kind of interesting that strauss-kahn was in some ways overrated as a presidential candidate because there's no certainty or likelihood he would win. >> rose: but he was far ahead of

the polls in a one on one match with sarkozy and he was the one that sarkozy most feared >> there are people who tell you that sarkozy didn't mind the idea of running against him because there's a pattern in france there is that there will be some strong man in the center who will do very well in the polling before an election. belladur was like this in '95 and when the election actually happens it tends to be the men of action rather than the men of poise who actually do the best but, yes, of course, i think that that's the case. and part of the tragedy of this, i think charlie, even assuming he is innocent, is in france it has a way of diminishing french politics, of degrading the general tone of french politics and making them-- and this is something i've heard from a lot of friends in patience the last few days-- in making them seem italian in the sense there's a kind of assorted overrun. that the idea of renewing the country of a new generation of leaders once again is stuck in this same kind of endless

merry-go-round of the same people performing the same way. the likeliest candidate to emerge if strauss-kahn does not is francois aland. and he's one of the elephants who's been around... of the previous socialist candidate. this seems like two incestuous a kindergarten to really grow politicians worthy of the country. >> rose: it's shakespearean, isn't it? >> strauss-kahn's thing? >> rose: yes. a tragedy of high order. >> yes because somebody takes a single action that that then has consequences... a criminal action, a horrible action but then has destructive consequences. >> also from the media it's the rich and the poor and the powerful and the disenfranchised and the idea of a maid at a hotel just working her way

trying to make enough money to support herself. >> and she's the... has to be if first obstruction of justice of pity and concern and empathy in all of this, too, and easily gets overlooked. >> rose: the whole focus has been on him. >> oh, it's going to move. her name won't be reported but i can assure you from cases like the kobe bryant case which i covered the accuser's name wasn't mentioned publicly but everyone knew who she was and they followed her around. they talked to her friends, they wanted to know every detail. >> rose: are they conversations that you have-- and this is my last question-- because you are who you are and because you are a legal correspondent with nbc and abc and therefore you have sources, give me a sense of how they view this. >> i think the defense team is nervous. i think that, you know, you want to call them tight-lipped but i think part of the reason they're being so... so tight-lipped is because they don't know exactly what their defense is going to be yet.

they want to see what the physical evidence is. the they're a little concerned about what the prosecutors may still have. and may still find as these d.n.a. tests and other tests are being done. >> rose: and you find on the side of the prosecution, of the state, of sort of one of those things that, look, i've seen these kinds of cases, there's more evidence here for this kind of case than i've mean? is that the attitude they have? >> the authorities absolutely believe in this case. they are entirely confident. they believe her story. and remember part of the credibility to her is the combination of d.n.a. in conjunction with how quickly she reported it and the way she appeared to the people who knew her when she told them what happened. that's very important. people talk about sexual assault allegations and they say it's just he said; she said. it's not. there's actually other evidence. >> there's he said; she said and what it shows. >> can i just add one thing here? one of my favorite expressions in french is "we must count to two."

meaning that it's possible to hold two ideas ethical and moral about one thing and they don't necessarily contradict each other. and it's possible to have primary empathy for this woman and accept that the prosecution's case is strong and still feel a certain kind of empathy or sympathy for someone a whose behavior is so wildly self-destructive at the moment and also to feel that after all the purpose of our system of justice should be to protect and punish not create this spectacle of shaming and humiliation that you can regret the carnival even if you suspect the perpetrator. and i think that a lot of people in france feel that way about it. >> rose: my primary emotion about this is how... is not to be naive, first of all. and to understand that terrible acts of violence have happened to people that you would never expect it of. at the same time, how could this be possible? someone i've interviewed, someone we all have met or know in one case or the other and know the family, how could this

be possible? because you're talking about the allegation is of a serious physical attack. >> and my guess would be that the account we're hearing today of naked man walks out of shower and immediately attacks housekeeper is probably going to be revised. i'm not suggesting that that's what the authorities are necessarily going to go with. but i think we're going to hear more nuance to that because that is so hard to believe that literally there wasn't conversation, there wasn't anything that occurred between them. and my guess is both the prosecution and defense i think will probably explain more in detail what interactions occurred between them. >> rose: one more time about this issue. you expect him-- even though you thought it might have happened earlier-- to get bail and there's no fear of flight?

>> i would have expected him to get bail at a very high amount with restrictions, the fact that the the judge has already said no makes me think it's going to be an uphill battle for the defense but there's still a shot. >> rose: thank you, great to see you. >> good to see you, charlie. >> rose: back in a moment, stay with us. the conversation we recorded in paris at lunch earlier today. >> rose: the news of strauss-kahn's arrest dominated headlines in paris where i was earlier today. i spoke to a group of observers of the french political scene. steve erlanger, paris bureau chief for the "new york times" has been writing about this case. dominique moisi, a senior advisor at france institute for international relations and natalie nougayrede, diplomatic correspondent for the french newspaper "le monde." here is that conversation that took place at noon in france earlier today. i want to begin with steven erlanger and talk about this case. you've been writing about it for the "new york times" and the "herald tribune". this question. is the french reaction to this different than the u.s. reaction? >> it is certainly. i mean partly because of the

renown of dominique strauss-kahn partly because he's a famous global french figure. people feel he's been treated with a degree of extra humiliation. but people are also embarrassed that such an important french figure finds himself in jail, in chains for what were is alleged to be an extremely tawdry crime. so it's embarrassing nationally, but there's also a feeling that new york justice is going out of its way to bring him down and to humiliate him. >> rose: dominique, this has to surprise you. what does it mean in terms of french politics now if he's not going to be the nominee of the socialist party? >> well, it means a new departure. it means that all the cards have been reshuffled. i mean, he was the favorite of the public opinion poll. to see the man who was groomed, so to speak, to be the next

president of france handcuffed and chained is a kind of national shock, if not humiliation. who's going to be the winners? who are going to be the losers from this new political picture is really too early to say. and i would be very prudent... if only thing i would venture is that it can be a plus for the national front. they have been... now they can say we always told you the elite were corrupt. but, no, they are even depraved. so there is that kind of populist tune that can be played more loudly. for the rest, i think it's to early to say. >> rose: there are all kinds of stories, though. one of the stories is that he

might have been set up. >> yeah, that was floated around especially the initial stages of the story. and it came out because there was a story on twitter indicating that some information had been known ahead of the police announcements. but i think obviously in this kind of scandal, you know, you get all these theories and conspiracy theories. i think the main thing that i think the french media are trying to figure out is what exactly happened and try to carry out good coverage of the investigation. and it's an absolute earthquake and i think in terms of french politics it is food for the extreme right, which is able to say one... one of the things that they're able to say is that the mainstream french media didn't tell us all they knew about dominique strauss-kahn and there's this claim that things were known about him that were not being reported on and that this scandal is connected to finally some big truth coming out. we don't know.

>> one of the sources is a woman who... a journalist or a writer who now says she may take legal action, she had talked about an assault but had not filed charges at the time. >> yes, that's right. this happened in 2002, so it was nine years ago. she's 31 now so she was a very young woman and she had... her family had close tied to dominique strauss-kahn because her mother is a socialist politician and she went to interview him for a book and they got on and he invited her to meet with him, which is her story, and it turned out to be an empty apartment with a bed and that he attacked her and they rolled around and he ripped off her bra and tried to rape her and she unfortunately tells this is story in 2007 on a very bizarre french cable channel show which has everyone sitting around at dinner. so while she's telling this story in a very coy sort of way,

chefs are running around pouring wine and making dessert and there are men around the table giggling. so it's all quite bizarre. >> but his name was cut out. his name was not broadcast that day. >> that's right. she admitted like a year later that she was talking about dominique strauss-kahn and so there it sat until now when she says through her lawyer that she is going to make a complaint and her mother now says she was wrong to advise her daughter not to do so in the past. >> rose: do the french have a different attitude not about violence-- which is quite different and quite more severe and as you said to me earlier, illegal-- but is there a different attitude... was there a different attitude about president clinton at the time on the part of the french? >> yes. i think what i would say is that the french equivalent of what is sex for the anglo-saxon is money

among frenchmen the real secret is not the mistress you have, the affairs you will enjoy. >> rose: it's the financial crimes. >> but the financial... your personal financial secret. but, of course, in that case it's not an issue of a man with a womanizer, everybody knew about that. it's about a crime. it's about sexual violence. and from that standpoint i noticed today a gender difference in the attitude of the french. the women said "let justice decide." the men tend to say "but why would american police and justice decide to humiliate this man in such a way?" >> rose: would you say they're treating him like they would

anyone else accused of these crimes and that's what they would worry about not doing? treating the egalitarian of aspect of american justice and the french would say, what, that because of his prominence he should have been given more what? >> well, i think there is, again, a cultural divide. the egalitarian violence of american justice may be one of the great things about american society. but it shocks here. why handcuffing him. why telling the press that this is the time he's going to leave the police station. i mean, these are things which looked unnecessary. >> i think this whole issue just outlines... and people are discovering there's a different system in the states. there's the judiciary area and the police investigation carried out in a different way and i think fact that the picture... the cameras and the photographers were there and able to capture that moment when he was handcuffed and between police and that shocked people here because in france it

doesn't happen. you... the identity of the person, the pictures of the person are protected under law for a degree of the investigation. i think it's true that there are different reactions in france and i think reaction from the concern about the woman who may have been his victim only came out quite belatedly. it was literally almost a day and a half before some public commentators started saying well maybe we should be expressing some concern and empathy for this woman and not just be scandalized about how he was dealt with by the american police. on another angle, i sense among people defending anymore a very, very radical way i sense that some people are playing on the anti-american chord in france. i think this is really coming back, it's very interesting to observe... >> rose: so of look how crude those americans are? >> well, it's the french

reaction that has always been there under the surface, we thought it disappeared with the sarkozy presidency. it's creeping back into the debate and it's carried back into the debate by people radically defending this guy. >> i think you're absolutely right. it started with the question with the what's wrong with dominique strauss-kahn" and moved into the another question "what's wrong with the united states?" as if the accusation had been partly erased... >> rose: but the criticism is about... the pictures like this on the front page... >> handcuffs. i've covered perp walks in new york city. and there is an element of aggressive anti-eliteisim in the new york city police. it's a roman circus quality. >> rose: it happened with bernie madoff. >> hedda nusz balm. and i think for a lot of french

there's a sense of, you know, we need to protect these figures but in america we like to rip them down. >> rose: it happened with martha stewart and a whole range of people. >> which kind of proves... i mean, we just a very different aggressively democratic culture which is anti-elitist. this is a catholic country, still. it doesn't go to church but it's much more of a shame culture and it has different responses. >> rose: tell me about this man dominique strauss-kahn. >> perhaps i'm not the best one to say. but he was born jewish, which is important for france. for he was a lawyer and economics professor. he's charming. he's a good teacher. he's liked women and women liked him all of his life. >> rose: married three or four times. >> has four children. and clearly considered a rising

star in the socialist party but probably too centrist for the socialist party of france which is more to the left. he ran in denomination for the presidency five years ago and lost badly. campaigned badly. >> rose: he was not a good candidate. >> not a particularly good candidate. and i think the general feeling is president sarkozy got him to washington to get him out of the way because he saw him as a potential rival for this presidential election. not betting on the world crisis in the i.m.f. becoming important. >> rose: to make him prominent and therefore help his credentials and as sarkozy's polls went down he went up and he was in fact in a one-to-one contest at the time that he was... >> oh, yes, yes. i mean he was a real threat for the incumbent president. >> rose: and even though a centrist would have had a real shot at the nomination...

>> yes, because i think socialists are hungry for power. they have not had testimony presidency of france since 1995. they're starved for power. in fact, i had dinner with dominique strauss-kahn in washington a few weeks ago. he gave a speech as the director general of the i.m.f.. and he looked and he sounded presidential. he had that combination of gravitas, serenity. in fact, it is as if a p.r. agency had decided to make him look as the exact opposite of nicolas sarkozy. he wouldn't shake, he wouldn't move, he would be posed and people left the room saying "he's going to be the next president of france." and that was only a few weeks ago. and that was in washington. >> rose: and is the impression of anybody who met him-- and

we've said this a thousand times-- he's innocent until proven guilty, we do not know the facts and what happened here those will come out, some of them will come out, but is the presumption here... the assumption here that this... how could this man have been even in this circumstance? or do people say something else? >> well the completely outrageous and unbelievable story that has just burst is obviously fueling some of these conspiracy theories that he was set up and things like that. you know, it's not... what we've heard about what he may have done doesn't seem to be in line with the character that was known publicly. >> rose: violent aspect of him. >> he's a womanizer, that's fairly well known and that was written about. but being violent and having violent behavior with women is something that had never reached the surface, public attention in france.

that had never been really looked into or reported on. so this is the complete surprise and shock. >> partly they're trying to argue about the timeline. but i think most of it is simply disbelief. this is not the man they know and this is not the behavior of the stupidity or the risk taking of a man about to run for the presidency of france. so one wonders the man has fallen to depths no man fathoms. you can't know what goes on inside the mind of someone who is alone in new york, is very powerful, feels immune, feels on top of the world. i don't know. i don't want to speculate. >> those who are defending him, those who know him best are saying well, he's a womanizer but he cannot turn violent. and what is shocking people is the possibility that the man they've been living with may be

a dr. jekyll and mr. hyde type of personality. this is the shock. i mean, why would someone commit self-destructive act of such a nature. >> rose: someone at the top of his power, the top of his game and someone who had win probably a life long ambition. >> and it's self-destruction is the only explanation that came first. >> this is going to put the spotlight on something that has been reported about it these last few days which is how do the french media cover the private lives of politicians in this country? and i think there is some soul searching going on and i know that in the past, you know, basically a handkerchief has been put on a certain amount of information concerning private lives. mitterrand had a secret daughter for many years that many journalists knew about. that's not a crime at fall

itself but he was using state security to hide her. and more recently there was a scandal involving our current culture minister who wrote in a book a few years ago that he had basically been involved in child prostitution in thailand and wrote about it in a novel and later said publicly that he... those were not minors, they were all adults. but this was something that... this scandal broke literally two years ago and yet again already the time it was very profitable for the extreme right wing movement in france saying, hey, you know, look at how the elite, the political and the media elite are in cahoots together and hiding all these dirty secrets. so i think there's going to be a time of reckoning about how do we really write about what a public figure says about himself and shows of himself and what he really is like in private. and especially crimes were involved. i think this is going to be...

>> yeah, i mean, the american press used to be very deferential, too, with f.d.r., for instance. >> rose: j.f.k. >> and j.f.k. and i have a feeling that france is following america that sometimes it leads but it's following america 30 years late because there is a kind of complicity. partly the press is different. i mean, newspapers are more aligned to political views generally than they are in america. but there's a kind of complicity of elites, too. there's a journalistic elite to has access to figures and so on which is not common in journalism but is being policed better, i think, by editors in america. here it's considered part of a way you report. in other words, people will fight ideas but they don't delve into personalities and character and the tradition of investigative journalism here, particularly of main characters, is weaker. >> but i think it goes beyond that. there has been there france in

the last few years a national campaign on television against sexual violence, denouncing willing couples women sold by their legal husband. suddenly you see an affair of sexual violence potentially. how can you have two different treatments. how can you denounce it publicly on television and how can you hide it when it effects a public figure. so i think you're right. the gap between the united states and france is shrinking and if you look at public opinion polls, the level of tolerance against brutality in... within couples has been greatly reduced. >> this is also happening in a context where we know the sarkozy presidency has been a moment of putting forward your private life.

we've seen it, the whole family issue. his previous wife cecelia and this has all been highly publicized and used on the political arena. and so this scandal is... highlights to a degree private life now is part of public life in france. >> and if you go beyond, you may say that for the americans it's the epitome of a frenchman. but if you are sitting in beijing you would say, well, the west is better sharing power. yesterday there was a fall of brothers, today there's a scandal of the i.m.f.. let us play our part. the west's moment has gone. so there is that element also. >> there's also in terms of the far right... i mean, it's important because it's in the

context of fear. the french economy is doing okay but people are afraid and the national front is very popular in the former industrial areas of france. not just in the south. it's not just about immigrants anymore. it really is an appeal on the jobs have been disappearing left to workers who feel their it really is an appeal on the left to workers who feel their jobs have been disappearing through globalization, they're going to china, who feel their sovereignty is being dissolved in the european union. who don't really know what it is to be french anymore.

and when you have an elite that looks, as dominique said, not just corrupt but somehow depraved it does lead the this sense that there's something deeply rotten in the state of france. >> rose: if it turns out that he's innocent, it's stale long way to come back from this kind of thing, isn't it? >> it will be too late if he's proven innocent. it will be too late for 2012 presidential campaign. and i feel very difficult for him to reemerge even as a victim from this scandal. >> rose: kathy preston is here. her books and writing focus on healthy living and conscious eating. her new book tops the physical, spiritual and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet. it's called "veganist: lose weight, get healthy, change the world." i'm pleased to have kathy preston, my friend at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: so what is it your husband said? he said you were veganists? >> yes, i was giving him... one day i was going off on one of my spiels about why it's hell thoi eat vegan and he said "honey, you're the veganist." i thought, well, okay as someone who's obsessed with a violin and wants to learn more is a violinist and i'm obsessed with

all things vegan so i'm a veganist. >> rose: what does that mean? >> it means i eat a plant-based diet. and i do it not only for health reasons because you lose weight, you prevent and reverse the major diseases like cancer, heart disease, type two diabetes b. but you are also doing the best thing for environment. you're also doing something positive for the animals because the way most animals are raised these days are on factory farms which is a horrendous practice. so eating vegan sort of addresses all of those issues. it benefits me as an individual, my health. it benefits the environment. it certainly benefits the animals and it's sort of a grand slam way of eating. >> rose: and it started for you how? >> it started for me one day i was looking at my dog who i loved so much and it occurred to me that this dog is no different than a little calf or a pig or a chicken it's just that i know my dog and i don't know the other animals. and because i was writing on evolving as a human being and

pushing myself to be ever more conscious i realized the one area i wasn't conscious at all was food, around food. and because food is so fundamental, we're making choices three times a day what we believe in, what we stand for. and i realized that i didn't do that at all with food. so i started thinking about if i'm not going to be a hypocrite i ought to start looking into how food is produced. when i saw how it was produced it didn't sit right with me. >> rose: cattle being taken to the slaughter. >> exactly. it didn't sit right with me. but because i'm from the south and i grew up eating meat and dairy and barbecued ribs. >> rose: they eat meat in atlanta? >> hello! lots of it, three times a day.

and it was so hard for me to think about not eating this stuff so i just pointed myself in the direction and i said i want to be someone who doesn't eat anything from an animal. >> rose: did you take nice little steps forward? >> that's exactly what i did. >> rose: what did you do? >> i leaned into it. >> rose: what tom said. i leaned into it. so i started reducing my animal protein. i started swapping out one meat dished meal per week and making a plant-based male... meal instead. >> rose: 21 would be normal, one would be... >> exactly. basically doing meatless on monday. and by doing that i started seeing how easy it was and i started looking into the health repercussions and within one week of not eating meet or dairy your weight starts to come off.

within two weeks your blood pressure and blood sugar are dropping. within the third week of eating a plant-based diet your cholesterol drops significantly. so that was so empowering when i learned that that the affects of eating this way of saying no to animal protein and opting for plant protein were so huge and satisfying, gratifying on every level for me they just continued to lean ever more in this direction. >> rose: it's one thing to do it for your own benefit. it's another thing to want to proselytize and get everyone else to do it. >> i'm not into proselytizing at all. >> rose: what's this about, though? >> it's about information. so in the book i give you ten promises and it's done in a way of promises because i think it's so exciting. you get to lose weight. you get to prevent... not only

prevent but reverse major diseases. for instance, heart disease. i talked with caldwell eccleston in the book who is a rock start heart surgeon and he says heart disease is basically a paper tigher that need not ever, ever exist and if it does exist it need not ever progress. so he has taught me how to reverse heart disease with a diet. and the same with cancer. i talked with... >> rose: by heart disease you mean things like hardening of the arteries and... >> yes. >> rose: how do you reverse it? >> by moving to a plant-based diet. so giving up... usually i talk about reducing but if you have serious heart problems you opt for plant-based protein. beans, legumes, chick peas, lentils, whole grains like brown rice, vegetables, fruits, tofu, satan, all of those things, high protein meat alternatives like veggie sausage and things like that. and when you that your cholesterol drops so significantly, so quickly that it's very exciting that you can actually reverse the trend of heart disease. it's a slam dunk. >> rose: and not get diabetes... type two diabetes.

>> type two diabetes, you can be off your medication within a week. >> rose: so what's the hardest thing for people to do in crossing the bridge? >> well, i think it's learning to know that we don't need as much protein as we think we need. americans eat about twice as much protein as we should have. >> rose: don't the japanese, for example... isn't there a lot of protein in their diet which is heavily fish? >> their protein before they've been more westernized has always been soy protein. so that's plant protein. and rice-based. it's been a rice-based culture. >> rose: not fish? not so much fish? a little bit of fish. you didn't have heart disease and cancer. >> rose: until they came here and started eating like we did. >> exactly. until they've been westernized. >> rose: people are willing to change if they think that the change not only will benefit them but is not painful.

>> i didn't want pain either. i wanted to enjoy good food. i still do, charlie. i want to go out to great restaurants and i want to have my martini and a glass of wine. i want to enjoy my life. >> rose: you just want to eat plants. >> i don't want to eaten a malls. >> rose: don't want to eaten a malls. so what do you seat in. >> i'll get japanese food and have a bowl... the rice and vegetables and the tofu and edamame. i'll go to an indian restaurant and opt for lentils, dahl, rice and all kinds of delicious breads, italian, i'll have white beans and pasta. >> rose: pastas stock? >> pasta's fine. >> rose: what's the evidence that this is an idea that has traction? >> oh, my gosh. it's... because the health cushions are so good and people are spending so much on their health care if you think about it, no matter how great your insurance is you still have a co-pay, you still have lost wages when you're out sick. you see bill clinton as s now vegan. >> rose: he's vegan or veganish? >> bill clinton is vegan.

>> rose: are you serious? you know this for a fact. >> he's talked about it. >> rose: he looks good. >> well, he's lost a lot of weight. >> rose: and what does he say? that he's happy? that it's changed his life? he had a heart issue as you know. >> he's seen the science and it so compelling he couldn't ignore it and he wanted to be around for his grandchildren and right before chelsea got married he decided he would become vegan. >> rose: he looked like it when he went to the wedding. >> mike tyson is vegan. larry paige from google is veganish. biz stone with the twitter, co-founder of twitter is vegan. so these are people who really do their research. they're not driven by necessarily an ethical thing but they're looking at the science and it's so compelling that you see people... steve winn from las vegas, the mogul in las vegas, he is vegan now. >> rose: and just got married. >> and all 22 of his restaurants in the winn resort are... have a vegan menu.

so this is a sign of the times. >> rose: therefore what would be your goal? you. >> well, to go to restaurants and see half the items be plant-based would be wonderful. to see in schools that kids have vegan menu items available to them. they really don't eat well in schools right now. i'd love to see that change. i'd love to see... >> rose: the first lady is on that case, i think. >> yeah. get moving, eat more vegetables. it's hard for a government official come out and say "reduce your animal protein" because there are so many companies and corporations that are arguing otherwise. >> rose: and you. what have you become? >> i think it was gandhi who said "compassion is a muscle

that gets strong we are use." so this is a way for me to practice being compassion nats and aware and con sshs to change e way that i eat. and from that i think my choice is in how to interact with people, how the see the world, how the do anything is affected by the way i eat because i'm conscious and thoughtful and compassionate. and so i want to continue making decisions in that way. >> rose: will you write another book? >> i'd love to. >> rose: ( laughs ) this is what bono said. "kathy freston writes so beautifully and convincingly that even the most carnivorous of rock stars finds himself staring at his bleeding protein with new eyes." "while we can't expect everyone to go vegetation or vegan entirely, read kathy freston's new book and be surprised how simply you can benefit from changing a few things in your daily intake. this is powerful stuff with long legs into our shared future." so if you read that book you will know what? >> you will know what to opt for. you'll know how to make things for your family that they'll enjoy. you'll know how to transform

your health in a very short amount of time in terms of serious diseases you will know how to be a environmental steward because eating vegan food is the single best thing we can do for the environment. the environmental defense fund said that if every american ate vegan for one day a week per year it would be like taking eight million cars off the road. so that's more powerful from changing our lightbulbs or buying a hybrid car. it's something we can do and i think that's very exciting that we can make a difference in our own lives and the greater good that we can really be effective that way. >> rose: "veganist: lose weight, get healthy, change the world." there you go. thank you. >> thank you, charlie. thank you so much. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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