France’s Le Maire Calls for Europe Compromise on IMF Leader
France’s Le Maire Calls for European Compromise on IMF Candidate
(Bloomberg) -- French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he hopes European countries will be able to reach a compromise on the region’s best candidate for the post of managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
Outgoing IMF head Christine Lagarde was picked this week to become president of the European Central Bank once Mario Draghi leaves on Oct. 31. The Frenchwoman was the 11th consecutive managing director to come from Europe.
“I think that we need to find a compromise at the European level, so we will open the discussions during the next Ecofin next week in Brussels,” Le Maire told reporters at an economic conference in Aix-en-Provence, southern France on Saturday.
Asked about Lagarde’s new role, he added: “She has a lot of experience at the highest level, she has been a great general director for the IMF, and I am deeply convinced that she will be a great president for the ECB.”
EU governments are considering Bank of England Governor Mark Carney for the IMF job, a person with knowledge of the discussions has said. While a Canadian by birth, Carney holds British and Irish passports, so his selection would technically preserve the seven-decade practice of a European running the Washington-based lender.
A French Finance Ministry official said earlier on Saturday that France hadn’t yet decided who it would support. A spokesman for Francois Villeroy de Galhau, who was a leading candidate to replace Draghi, said the governor of the Bank of France isn’t a candidate to replace Lagarde at the IMF.
Le Maire added that the French government’s economic policies -- based on structural reforms, cutting public spending and supporting business competitiveness by funding innovation and research -- were taking the country in the right direction.
“We will stick to this policy because I believe in stability and I think that the results that we currently have are a clear signal that we are on the right direction,” Le Maire said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Caroline Connan in Paris at cconnan@bloomberg.net;Angeline Benoit in Paris at abenoit4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Geraldine Amiel at gamiel@bloomberg.net, Tara Patel, Andrew Davis
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