French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Thursday he will lead talks on finding a single European candidate to succeed Christine Lagarde as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The post of IMF managing director, which by convention goes to a European, became vacant after Lagarde was tapped by EU leaders to head the European Central Bank.
Finance ministers of the four European members of the G7 — Germany, France, Britain and Italy — met informally on the sidelines of the meeting of the most developed nations in Chantilly outside Paris to discuss the issue.
Sources said after the meeting that the names of several candidates had been floated but no kind of selection had been made.
“We agreed that it was important one European name was put forward. A number of names were informally discussed but no short list was established,” a European official, who asked not to be named, said.
