Sarkozy: Lagarde selection is a “victory for France”

Just a few hours after being named the next IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde urged Greek opposition leaders to link arms with the government to support austerity measures and avoid a cataclysmic default. "If I have one message tonight about Greece, it is to call on the Greek political opposition to support the party that ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Just a few hours after being named the next IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde urged Greek opposition leaders to link arms with the government to support austerity measures and avoid a cataclysmic default. "If I have one message tonight about Greece, it is to call on the Greek political opposition to support the party that is currently in power in a spirit of national unity."

Just a few hours after being named the next IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde urged Greek opposition leaders to link arms with the government to support austerity measures and avoid a cataclysmic default. "If I have one message tonight about Greece, it is to call on the Greek political opposition to support the party that is currently in power in a spirit of national unity."

As Lagarde urges the Greeks to pull together, she also will be seeking to pull together the IMF’s chief shareholders. Although formally speaking her election was by consensus, the selection process left some scars and placed in great doubt the tradition of European IMF heads. Lagarde’s most recent boss, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, didn’t help the cause any when he declared that Lagarde’s selection was a "victory for France." 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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