CHRISTINE LAGARDE, managing director of the International Monetary Fund and an outspoken feminist who has said women would bring better values to business, went on trial today for alleged criminal negligence in a €400 million payout to a French tycoon. From The New York Times:

Ms. Lagarde is accused of “negligence by a person in a position of public authority” in overseeing a politically charged arbitration case in 2007. In the case, Bernard Tapie, a flamboyant French tycoon close to Nicolas Sarkozy, then France’s president, was awarded more than 400 million euros, or $430 million, to settle a dispute with the partly state-owned bank Crédit Lyonnais.

Her lawyer appealed for a postponement, but the court — which is hearing the case in the same courtroom where the French queen Marie-Antoinette was tried — denied the request. The trial is scheduled to run through Dec. 20 but could conclude earlier.

[…]

“Was I negligent? No,” she continued. “And I will work to convince you allegation by allegation.”

She may, of course, be innocent. But her case is a reminder that one of the great things about women not having power such as this was that they could not misuse it.

Lagarde, like her friend German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is a big fan of open borders. She wants women all over the world to increase their presence in the paid workforce.

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