PARIS: Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to file suit for defamation over a US movie inspired by the scandal that brought down the former IMF chief, his lawyer said Monday.

“Welcome to New York” by Abel Ferrara stars Gerard Depardieu as a man called Georges Devereaux with striking similarities to “DSK” — whose alleged 2011 sexual assault on a New York hotel maid shook the world. Speaking on Europe 1 radio, Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Jean Veil said his client would in the coming days “file suit for defamation over the accusations of rape and the insinuations made all throughout the movie.”

He said Strauss-Kahn has been cleared of all charges in the case, and was “sickened and frightened by this film,” which premiered at the Cannes film festival on Saturday.

Veil described the film as “a piece of shit, dogshit,” and echoed a charge by Strauss-Kahn’s ex-wife Anne Sinclair that aspects of it were “anti-Semitic.”

The start of Ferrara’s film states that it is inspired by a court case but it has been widely seen as a fictionalized account of the downfall of DSK.

Strauss-Kahn was arrested in May 2011 in New York and forced to live under house arrest for weeks after posting $1 million bail.

Criminal charges were eventually dropped and Strauss-Kahn settled a civil suit brought by the maid by paying her undisclosed damages, which reportedly exceeded $1.5 million.