As Strauss-Kahn spent his first full day on $US1 million ($0.94 million) bail at a rented apartment on Broadway, he faced new claims that:

■ He put pressure on a married Asian administrative worker to have sex with him, according to a former IMF official. The claim was brought to the attention of a serving IMF official by her distraught husband after the woman confided details.

The woman declined to make a complaint because she feared losing her job.

■ Two other employees of the Sofitel Hotel in New York told investigators that Strauss-Kahn made advances during his stay last weekend. Soon after he checked into his suite, he allegedly called the front desk and asked the receptionist to join him for a drink, according to a US news website.

■ While Strauss-Kahn was head of the IMF, an official paid ''hush money'' to a woman working at another Washington-based global institution to secure her silence over an affair.

■ A former IMF official challenged the result of an internal IMF investigation that cleared Strauss-Kahn of sexual harassment and abuse of office over his affair with Piroska Nagy, a married Hungarian economist, in January 2008. Ms Nagy eventually left the IMF for a new post in London.

Lawyers for the former IMF chief, who denies sexually assaulting the hotel worker, did not respond to a request for comment about the new allegations.

There is no suggestion of any new criminal sexual offence.

Robert Smith, the Washington lawyer who led the IMF's internal inquiry, said it had been properly conducted.

French women's groups outraged by the political and media reaction to the sexual assault allegations were to assemble for a protest at the Pompidou Centre in Paris last night.

Feminist campaigners have objected to what they say have been remarks playing down the seriousness of rape, or blurring the boundaries of what is or is not acceptable sexual behaviour.

TELEGRAPH, AFP