France is divided over Dominique Strauss-Kahn's possible return to public life, with 49% of voters saying they would like to see him back on the political scene. But even his allies concede that he would be returning to a country that is much changed.

The feminist uproar against machismo, sexism, harassment and what one commentator called the "misogynist reflexes" of France sparked by Strauss-Kahn's arrest in May shows no signs of abating.

In the seven weeks since the Socialist presidential hopeful was charged with attempted rape and sexual assault, French society has undergone massive soul-searching in its attitudes to women.

It was not the DSK case itself that sparked feminist street demonstrations but comments by the French elite, perceived as belittling both rape and women. Caroline de Haas, head of the group Osez le Feminisme, said: "The DSK affair showed that women were fed up with inequalities and machismo of French society." That anger will continue, she warned.

More than 40 feminist groups on Sunday held the biggest conference on women's rights in a decade, with 600 activists present. Some said interest in the feminist cause had been boosted by the DSK affair, which had sparked a surge in calls to rape-counsellors in France. Others hoped that doubts over the credibility of the New York maid in the case would not put off other women from reporting rape.

According to a poll for Le Parisien newspaper, 60% of leftwing sympathisers want a political comeback by Strauss-Kahn, the Socialist once tipped to beat Nicolas Sarkozy and win the 2012 presidential election. Pollsters are now expected to dissect whether, regardless of the outcome of the case, his popularity among Frenchwomen will have fallen steeply, as some commentators predict.

Although free from house arrest, Strauss-Kahn still faces charges of attempted rape and sexual assault.

Both sides accept a sexual encounter took place in his New York hotel suite on 14 May – his lawyers say it was consensual, the hotel maid's lawyers say it was a brutal sex attack.

Stéphane Rozès, head of the political consultants CAP, said whether Strauss-Kahn could return would depend on whether he was cleared of all charges and specifically "what explanation is given by the judge". He said France had been "traumatised" by the case, but one clear change in French life had been a new confidence among women to speak out about sexism and allegations of sex crimes.

He said perception of Strauss-Kahn's political competence had not changed among voters but his perceived "presidential standing" had been dented among both women and men. However, France would not now begin judging politicians "based on their private lives", he argued, unless their behaviour was criminal.

But Le Monde on Sunday showed some taboos had been broken, running a portrait of Strauss-Kahn with personal details that would have been unthinkable two months ago: former advisers and MPs dissected his philandering, womanising and what the paper called a "fatality of temperament", "taste for pleasure and risk" and a confidence he wouldn't get caught that verged on "amorality".

The paper detailed how when an adviser warned him about a 2003 story about involvement in an orgy at a swingers' club he replied: "You're just jealous." In April, he had told reporters from Libération: "Yes, I like women, so what?" The paper said very few of his advisers dared warn against his thrill-seeking.

Chantal Jouanno, the sports minister who admitted that French politics was so sexist that she dare not wear a skirt in parliament, told Europe 1 radio: "He hasn't presented a very positive image, between his taste for luxury and other subjects."

The attitude towards alleged sex crimes in French politics seems to have been transformed.

Last week saw parliamentary immunity lifted from Georges Tron, the former civil service minister whom President Nicolas Sarkozy forced to resign over sex assault allegations not long after Strauss-Kahn's arrest. Tron has now been charged with rape and sexual assault relating to allegations that he attacked women who worked for him in his role as mayor in Draveil, south of Paris, for Sarkozy's UMP. The women said they were emboldened to come forward after the Strauss-Kahn affair. Tron denies the accusations.

"Without the psychodrama of New York, would Tron's accusers have spoken out? And would Nicolas Sarkozy and [the prime minister] François Fillon have ejected a personality who had become a nuisance?" asked the political writer Bruno Dive in Sud Ouest.

This week the Socialist party will decide whether to expel the senator Jacques Mahéas, who was convicted of sexual harassment last year. Socialist politician Pierre Moscovici said that Strauss-Kahn was not yet considering a political future in France but was trying to restore his honour after "worldwide humiliation".