Christine Lagarde: 5 Things You Need to Know

October 22, 2018

Paris, France

Here are the five most important elements to understanding IMF President Christine Lagarde as she continues to guide international monetary policy amid growing tensions in the EU over Brexit and Italy’s proposed budget:

1. She holds four master’s degrees from two different universities.

2. She is the first woman to become Finance Minister of a G8 economy (France).

3. She is a noted anti-trust and labor lawyer.

4. She was the first female Chair of international law firm Baker & McKenzie.

5. She is French.

While speaking to a group of his EU colleagues, Bruno Le Maire, France’s Minister of Finance observed, “Four of these criteria are not very important in truly knowing about Christine, but one factor holds the key. Let us examine: She is French. The word ‘she’ tells us that Christine is a woman, with all the beauty, mystique and complexity this entails. Next consider that she is French, which means she comes from the country of France — a delicious riddle in itself. Now when you add the two together, you see that she is a French woman — the most exquisite and unknowable entity the universe has yet to create. And voila, if you truly understand that ‘She is French’, then you will comprehend that she is unknowable. And so all of her future decisions as the President of the IMF are as impossible to predict as the path of a cloud in a dream.”

The group of colleagues, all of whom happened to be men, nodded in solemn agreement at the obvious truth of Le Maire’s reasoning.

As of press time, Lagarde and her team of advisers were wrapping up a fourth consecutive 18-hour day of analyzing patterns in fifty-two years of monetary data in an effort to avoid a world-wide financial downturn.