"The Telegraph": Dominique Strauss-Kahn sues Sarkozy aide and leading French newspaper.

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, tipped to become France's next president before his arrest on sex assault charges, is suing a newspaper, several magazines and an adviser of President Nicolas Sarkozy over reports about him, his lawyers have said.

Acting for Strauss-Kahn and his wife Anne Sinclair, a former TV star and art heiress, lawyers said they were pursuing French daily Le Figaro and several French magazines as well as Henri Guaino, a senior Sarkozy adviser. "Neither Anne Sinclair nor Dominique Strauss-Kahn wish to limit free expression of ideas and circulation of information but neither do they accept their privacy being exploited and fed off for purely commercial reasons," said the statement.

It was not clear on what grounds the legal action was being taken but there is a criminal complaint in the case of Guaino. The former IMF head was to announce he would run for president of France when he was arrested in New York on 14 May and charged with attempted rape.

US prosecutors dropped the criminal charges, citing doubts about the credibility of the witness, leaving Strauss-Kahn free to return to France, where prosecutors have decided that a sex assault complaint against him came too late to be pursued in the courts.

French media have carried regular stories in recent weeks about a prostitution probe in the north of France where the name of Strauss-Kahn keeps coming up. Strauss-Kahn has asked on that matter to be given an appointment to explain himself to investigators.