PARIS: IMF chief Christine Lagarde’s future was at stake yesterday as French prosecutors grilled her for a second day to decide if she should be charged over a state payout to a disgraced tycoon when she was finance minister.
Lagarde was questioned for 12 hours Thursday by prosecutors working for a court that probes cases of ministerial misconduct over her 2007 handling of a row that resulted in ¤400m ($515m) being paid to controversial business figure Bernard Tapie.
Lagarde has downplayed the investigation, but the stakes are high for both her and the International Monetary Fund, which has expressed confidence in its first woman leader.
She could be named an assisted witness, whose status falls between that of simple witness and being placed under formal investigation — the closest equivalent in French law to being charged — and implies there is some evidence against the person questioned.
But she would not be automatically forced to resign from the IMF if she is charged.
The chic Lagarde, considered one of the world’s most powerful women, won respect as France’s first female finance minister for her no-nonsense attitude, intellect and style.
She greeted journalists but did not make any statements upon her arrival at the courthouse in Paris Friday. But her entourage said she expected a grilling as long as the first day, adding that she would make a statement when she emerged.
Criminal charges against Lagarde would mark the second straight scandal for an IMF chief, after her predecessor Dominique Strauss-Kahn, also from France, resigned in disgrace in 2011 over an alleged assault on a New York hotel maid.
The IMF reiterated its support on Thursday, with a spokesman saying: “The executive board has been briefed on that matter, including recently, and continues to express its confidence in the managing director’s ability to effectively carry out her duties.”
The investigation concerns Tapie, a former politician, who went to prison for match-fixing during his time as president of French football club Olympique de Marseille. Prosecutors working for the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) suspect he received favourable treatment in return for supporting Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election.
They have suggested 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.
The investigation centres on her 2007 move to ask a panel of judges to arbitrate in a dispute between Tapie and Credit Lyonnais, the collapsed, partly state-owned bank, over his 1993 sale of sports group Adidas.
AFP
