The allegation was made in a blog written by the Brussels correspondent of the newspaper Liberation, Jean Quatremer.

He said there was a risk that the former French finance minister's behaviour towards women might cause a scandal at International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington.

"The only real problem with StraussKahn is his attitude to women." He is "too insistent, " Quatremer wrote. "The IMF is an international institution with Anglo-Saxon morals. One inappropriate gesture, one unfortunate comment, and there will be a media hue and cry."

Quatremer's blog was immediately attacked on the website of the magazine Marianne as "crossing a yellow line". He was also criticised in a column in his own newspaper yesterday by the media commentator, Daniel Schneidermann.

How was it, he asked, that French journalists felt able to make such allegations on the internet but not in print? Under French privacy law, it is forbidden to discuss private lives, even of public figures.

Schneidermann went on to say, however, that the Socialist politician's reputation as a womaniser was well known.

"I have heard many reports, some at first hand, from women journalists" who have been subject to "advances" from Strauss-Kahn during interviews, he wrote.

Strauss-Kahn's office has declined to comment officially. One close adviser told Marianne: "It's annoying but it's not so serious as all that."

Strauss-Kahn, 58, has been recommended for the post of IMF director by President Nicolas Sarkozy. The choice was endorsed last week by almost all other EU governments.

Defending his blog, Quatremer said: "I'm fed up with the generalised hypocrisy of the French press." He said he was an admirer of Strauss-Kahn and his blog was intended as a friendly warning.