Arianna Huffington and Anne Sinclair, the wife of former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, have launched the French version of the US news site The Huffington Post.

More than 200 journalists attended the launch of le Huffington Post in Paris Monday reflecting the intense interest in Sinclair's return to public life following last year's so-called Strauss-Kahn affair.

Strauss-Kahn, who had been expected to run in this year's presidential elections, was arrested in May 2011 at a New York hotel on charges of attempting to rape a hotel maid.

Prosecutors later dropped the charges but the case opened a Pandora's box of allegations against the Socialist politician, including allegations of sexually assaulting a French writer and of having links to a prostitution network.

Sinclair, a 63-year-old veteran journalist who hosted an interview program on TF1 news channel for years before putting her career on hold when Strauss-Kahn joined the government, has stood by her husband throughout.

French journalists on Monday pressed her on how The Huffington Post would deal with the ongoing Strauss-Kahn story. Would the site cover the allegations against him?

"We are a (digital) newspaper. Everything that should be on the front page will be on the front page," Sinclair assured, as cited by DPA.

"There is no conflict of interest. I don't mix my personal life and my public life," she added.

Huffington said the launch of the French site was the "culmination of a love affair" with France, which began at the age of 11 when her father took her to Paris on her first trip outside her native Greece.

As for Sinclair, who has become something of a martyr figure in France over her unstinting support for Strauss-Kahn, the author and talk-show host said: "I have long admired Anne Sinclair as a journalist, as a professional and for her passion for new media."

The French Huffington Post is a partnership between the US Huffington Post, French daily Le Monde, where the eight-person 'HuffPo' team is housed, and a French banker who has part ownership of Le Monde.

Le Monde has stressed that it has no editorial input into the site and that its contribution is purely industrial.

The site, which is entirely in French, faces significant competition from popular investigative news sites such as Mediapart and Rue 89.

Monday's edition led with an analysis of a major campaign speech Sunday by Francois Hollande, the Socialist frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election.

"Successful take-off in Le Bourget," the headline on the story read. The Huffington Post was launched in the United States in 2005 with a USD 1 M investment.

Under Huffington's stewardship, it has become one of the most visited news and opinion websites in the US and begun to expand internationally.

Last year one-time internet media giant AOL bought the site for USD 315 D.

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