PARIS: French prosecutors grilled IMF chief Christine Lagarde in a Paris court yesterday to decide if she should be charged over a state payout to disgraced tycoon Bernard Tapie during her time as finance minister.
Lagarde has downplayed the investigation, but the stakes are huge for both her and the International Monetary Fund. Since March, the IMF has not commented on the affair but the board has reiterated its ‘confidence’ in her.
French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said that Lagarde “retains the full confidence of French authorities and myself”.
But government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said she thought Lagarde’s days at the IMF were over if she were charged.
Criminal charges against Lagarde, 57, would mark the second straight scandal for an IMF chief, after her predecessor Dominique Strauss-Kahn, also from France, resigned in disgrace over an alleged assault on a New York hotel maid.
Her court appearance comes a day after Lagarde, the first woman to run an organisation considered the pillar of the international financial system, was named the world’s seventh most powerful woman by Forbes magazine.
The Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), which probes cases of ministerial misconduct, is seeking an explanation of her 2007 handling of a row that resulted in €400 million (Dh1.9 million) being paid to Bernard Tapie.
The former politician and controversial business figure went to prison for match-fixing during his time as president of French football club Olympique de Marseille.
Prosecutors working for the CJR suspect he received favourable treatment in return for supporting Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election.
They have suggested that Lagarde, who at the time was finance minister, was partly responsible for “numerous anomalies and irregularities”, which could lead to charges for complicity in fraud and misappropriation of public funds, after she allegedly asked a panel of judges to arbitrate in a dispute between Tapie and Credit Lyonnais.
