When Christine Lagarde stood before the Court of Justice of the Republic last week to defend herself against charges of criminal negligence in her handling of a long-running fraud case in France, the head of the IMF concluded:
‘I have acted in conscience, in confidence and guided by the general interest.’
But today, the court decided otherwise and announced a guilty verdict. The 60-year-old need not worry about going to prison or even paying a fine – and she won’t even receive a criminal record. Yet nonetheless the verdict is a serious blow for Lagarde, and the IMF. After all, Lagarde was supposed to be the much-needed steady pair of hands appointed to take charge of the organisation in 2011 – just what was needed to restore their dented credibility in the wake of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal. So what happens now? At the very least, Lagarde will fear for her job. Yesterday’s Le Journal Du Dimanche, the best-selling Sunday newspaper in France, reported that the IMF would hold a meeting of its board to evaluate the ‘reputational impact’ of a guilty verdict. How much of a kicking the IMF takes in the English-speaking media – which is likely to be much tougher on her than the more passive French press – will be key to what they decide.
Whether Lagarde manages to cling on or not, the implications won’t stop with the IMF. This murky affair, which has bubbled along for several years, has come to a head just months before the country goes to the polls in next year’s Presidential election. And this messy case plays into the hands of the National Front because Francois Fillon, the centre-right candidate, and the man expected to meet Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election in the spring, has been drawn into the scandal too. The French media claim that Bernard Tapie – the man to whom Lagarde approved the payment which finally landed her in hot water today – was a frequent visitor to the Élysée Palace in the first couple of years of Sarkozy’s presidency, and on occasions met Fillon, who was Prime Minister at the time. The sign that the National Front will try and capitalise on this mess are already obvious: ‘Guilty but not responsible’, tweeted Florian Phillippott, the deputy leader of the National Front, on hearing the verdict. ‘And they’re talking about 403 millions. Crazy!’.
Lagarde’s conviction comes in the same month that Jerome Cahuzac, the former budget minister in Francois Hollande’s Socialist government, was imprisoned for three years for tax fraud and money laundering. Try as they might the political establishment in France just can’t seem to clean up their act, which is why a growing number of voters believe it’s finally time they drained the swamp.
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