Strauss-Kahn expected home in Paris this weekend

Speculation is rife in France over the possible return to Paris on Sunday morning of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for the first time since his dramatic arrest in New York on 14 May, and the extraordinary sequence of events which followed.

Reuters/Brendan McDermid

Friends of Strauss-Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair say the couple have tickets for a flight from New York on Saturday which would arrive on Sunday morning at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, where photographers and journalists are already gathering.

Strauss-Kahn's public relations team are already said to be advising him on how best to try to stage-manage his arrival.

They are thought to favour a fairly low-key first appearance, where he will be surrounded by his family, including Anne Sinclair's new baby granddaughter, born in France while Strauss-Kahn was still under strict surveillance and confined to a rented Manhattan apartment.

But all of Strauss-Kahn's entourage agree that he must, before long, explain himself to the French public.

"He owes the French an explanation, and the French are waiting for him to give it," says Gilles Finchelstein, who advises Strauss-Kahn on communications.

Another close friend insists: "Its simple, Dominique must answer two key questions: what happened at the Sofitel Hotel? and what he is going to do in politics?"

His wife Anne Sinclair is thought likely to encourage her husband to make a live television appearance very soon - as a former TV journalist herself, she will be aware that the best way to feed the media frenzy likely to greet his return, is to throw a bone.

France's strict privacy laws will prevent photographers stalking Strauss-Kahn, but if he visits Socialist Party headquarters as a political figure, he will be considered fair game.

And such a visit will create embarrassment for his colleagues, many of whom are jostling to be chosen as Socialist Party candidate in France's presidential elections in May 2012.

For even if the charges against Strauss-Kahn in New York were dropped, his reputation as a left-wing politician is in tatters.

His millionaire lifestyle has been fully exposed over the last few months, and many were shocked by the stream of stories which emerged about his behaviour towards women.

The New York chambermaid, Nafissatou Diallo has filed a civil suit against him, and prosecutors in France must decide whether or not to proceed with another case alleging attempted rape, filed by French writer Tristane Banon.

The future looks far from serene for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but after an extraordinary summer of high drama in New York, he will surely be glad to hit the tarmac in Paris.