Newswatch

The French government’s proposed top 75% income tax rate, applicable to individuals annually earning more than 1 million euros, was struck down by the country’s Constitutional Council last weekend after it ruled that it breached a fundamental principle of equality for taxpayers. This was the application of income tax per individual instead of the usual method of per household. How could the government, now accused of amateurism, and especially the budget and finance ministries, have ignored a technicality to which they had been previously alerted by the parliamentary finance commission? While President François Hollande has promised to redraft the terms of the tax, there is every indication that, if it is revived, it will return severely watered-down. Mediapart business and finance specialist Martine Orange analyses a fiasco that begs the question of whether the tax was scuppered from the inside.

International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to remain in police custody in New York after a Manhattan court on Monday decided he was a flight risk and denied him $1 million bail on sex assault charges. Strauss-Kahn, who until this weekend was tipped by opinion polls as the likely winner of next year's French presidential elections, faces up to 25 years in jail if found guilty of charges of perpetrating a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment of a chambermaid at a luxury New York hotel on Saturday. "This battle has just begun," announced defence lawyer Benjamin Brafman.

International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (photo) is to remain in police custody in New York after a Manhattan court decided he was a flight risk and denied him $1 million bail on sex assault charges. Strauss-Kahn, who until this weekend was tipped by opinion polls as the likely winner of next year's French presidential elections, faces up to 25 years in jail if found guilty of charges of perpetrating a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment of a chambermaid at a New York hotel on Saturday. "This battle has just begun," announced defence lawyer Benjamin Brafman.

The French political scene was thrown into turmoil after International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (photo), widely tipped in opinion polls as favourite to win next year's French presidential elections, was arrested in New York on charges of sexually assaulting and imprisoning a 32 year-old chambermaid in a suite at a Manhattan hotel.

• "Forensic evidence could contain DNA": New York Times

• IMF No 2 John Lipsky named acting managing director

• "It looked like he got out of there in a hurry": NYPD Deputy Commissioner

• Allegations of sexual abuse resurface in France

President Nicolas Sarkozy's electoral campaign pledge to create "irreproachable" government has been lost to a series of affairs involving ministers and acolytes serving their personal interests through public office. As his presidency approaches the four-year mark, Sophie Dufau presents some of the most notable examples of clannishness and cronyism that have characterised the Sarkozy administration almost from day one.

Mediapart publie les bonnes feuilles du livre Armes de corruption massive, dans lequel Jean Guisnel raconte l'étonnant ballet français pour décrocher des contrats d'armement en Libye, après la levée de l'embargo. On y découvre le couple Michèle Alliot-Marie, démissionnée du gouvernement, et Patrick Ollier, toujours ministre, au cœur de ces bonnes relations avec le dictateur libyen, le colonel Kadhafi.

The long-awaited French government reshuffle, completed Sunday evening, has ushered in a ministerial team largely composed of President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP party stalwarts, in a move that appears to launch the president's bid for re-election in 2012. Out go the Centrist movement heavyweights, along with the few renegades from the Left. Géraldine Delacroix and Michaël Hajdenberg sketch who's who and who's no more, and present the complete list of new government members.