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POWER can be a heady aphrodisiac and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, when chief of the International Monetary Fund and about to run for French president, had plenty of it.

But eventually his power, apparently used to feed his voracious sexual appetite, would prove his undoing.

“Yes, I like women, so what?” the silver-haired Strauss-Kahn told the Liberation newspaper in April 2011, just weeks before his high-flying career imploded over accusations he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid.

After settling the case in a civil suit he admitted “a moral failing,” but the next sex scandal was just around the corner when he became a key suspect in a probe into a prostitution ring.

The once-dazzling politician and economist, known as DSK in France, is now in the dock for “aggravated pimping” over his role in initiating sex parties attended by prostitutes in France, Belgium and Washington.

The court is likely to hear sleazy details about the dark side of the man who once jetted around the world steering the IMF through the global financial crisis.

He admits he took part in group sex but denies knowing that the women at the parties were prostitutes.

Strauss-Kahn was born to a Jewish family in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1949 and spent part of his childhood in Morocco.

He racked up diplomas at the elite Paris universities Sciences-Po and HEC, marrying a woman two years his senior at the tender age of 18.

He joined the Socialist Party in 1976 and within a decade underwent a total makeover, marrying a second time, shaving off his beard and ditching his thick glasses.

Skilled at explaining complex economic issues in simple terms, he soared through the ranks of the party, entering parliament in 1986 and later becoming mayor of a Parisian suburb.

Strauss-Kahn’s third marriage, to famous French television journalist and wealthy heiress Anne Sinclair, made him part of a slick power couple.

In 1997 he became finance minister, taking part in negotiations on the creation of the euro currency and winning respect across the continent.

After winning the French presidency in 2007, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy put Strauss-Kahn forward as France’s candidate to head the IMF, a move seen as a bid to neutralise one of the Socialists’ most prominent leaders.

Strauss-Kahn has tried to rebuild his life, acting as a consultant to governments and a Russian regional bank.