China resists French front-runner for IMF top job

BEIJING dug its heels in against western domination of the International Monetary Fund as French frontrunner Christine Lagarde prepared to build on her headstart in the race for the top IMF job.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, hosting talks with G8 leaders, said his country's candidate was "a woman of very great qualities" and regarded by many as a good person to run the world's primary rescue lender.

"We think it would be appropriate that the director of the IMF be a European," he said. "Everybody thinks that Christine Lagarde is a woman of very great qualities."

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Officials in Paris said the French finance minister was planning a support-seeking tour that would take in some of the new, more reticent, powers such as Brazil and China, following her announcement on Wednesday she was officially in the running for the post.

China joined other increasingly powerful but less developed nations to challenge an understanding in the recruitment process that has kept the top job in European hands since the IMF was created after the Second World War.

The post of IMF managing director has been vacant since the arrest of Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on charges of attempted rape.

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