One would have thought that after all the shenanigans surrounding Dominique Strauss-Kahn, la belle France would want to be seen to be cleaning up its house.

The majority of French men and women outside the Parisian clique were genuinely shocked at the revealed complicity between the ruling elite and the media.

It was a complicity that permitted DSK and his ilk to go unchallenged because of the arrogant and so-called sophisticated French belief that personal and private lives should remain separate. (Backed, of course, by the harshest privacy laws in Europe – laws that many public figures in the UK are now demanding of the Leveson inquiry.)

It is a sobering thought that had DSK, then head of the International Monetary Fund, kept his hands off the chambermaid in New York he would almost certainly be the French president. And his known penchant for rough sex and prostitutes would have continued to go unreported; as no doubt would his alleged harassment of women on his staff. Nay, women left alone in his presence.

Having been embarrassed throughout the world for their silence on such matters, the French press promised to be more robust in the future.

What would have made the front page in British and American newspapers, had it happened in those countries, has been given comparatively little space at all. But as of now there are no laws in place against sexual harassment. And all cases awaiting hearings have been scrapped, leaving alleged victims in limbo. The law was repealed after an appeal court ruled that the definition of the crime was too vague. It could be months, if not longer, before a new framework is drawn up.

Being of a certain age and having waltzed into my first offices in mini-skirts or hot pants, I have a particular view on such laws. Unless in a situation involving force or threats, I believe adult, intelligent women should be able to deal with "boys" who get their kicks from smutty talk or overt sexual approaches. A cold eye, a look of contempt and a vicious tongue is usually enough to slap down even the most rampant.

Indeed, had such laws been in place when I was a young woman, I would probably be sitting in a fine chateau now instead of my farmhouse, since I would have followed today's trend and sued virtually every one of my male colleagues. But of course I wouldn't, because that was how life was then and revenge was beating the poseurs on the road. It was a Life On Mars set in a newsroom and if you couldn't take the heat the attitude was that you shouldn't be in the kitchen.

I agreed with that then, and part of me still does. However, that does not mean I would advocate a return to that kind of free-for-all. The weak and vulnerable have always to be protected and, by all accounts, in France in particular.

Strauss-Kahn had already been warned over a relationship with a subordinate in 2008 when his proclivities came to light. The woman said she felt pressured to sleep with him, and French writer Tristane Banon filed a complaint after the New York case alleging he tried to assault her in 2003.

A female journalist told me editors warned women going to interview him never to be alone with him as it wasn't safe. Yet he went unchecked, unchallenged – confident no paper would expose him – until New York. Had it happened in Paris, it is doubtful it would have seen the light of day.

Last year, junior civil service minister Georges Tron was forced to resign after two women who had worked for him filed sexual harassment complaints. One said the debate sparked by the Strauss-Kahn scandal had prompted her to break her silence. Last week's ruling came after France's harassment law was contested for being too broad by a former deputy mayor in the southern Rhone region who was jailed for three months and fined €5000 for sexually harassing three employees.

The former law, drawn up in 1992, originally defined an instigator of sexual harassment as someone abusing his or her authority. It was modified 10 years ago to broaden the definition.

The new version stated: "The act of harassing others with the goal of obtaining sexual favours is punishable by one year of imprisonment and €15,000 in fines." It is this definition that has now been found to be "constitutionally vague".

The debate to come on any new law should be fascinating. What's more, the French will have to look closely at themselves and their often rather predatory and dismissive attitudes towards women. And it will be no use hiding behind the canard that they have always been more sexually liberated than the rest of the world.

For women, who have ironically been empowered by the last debate around Strauss-Kahn, it will be the true test of France's willingness to change.