Christine Lagarde’s life has been marked by many firsts. She was the first woman to head up Baker McKenzie, the big Chicago law firm. She was the first woman to become finance minister in France and she was the first woman to be appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund. This week saw her cement another first which is to be the first French woman to be appropriated by the Irish as a “friend” with the benefits and obligations that bestows.
Her elevation to this particular pantheon has been many years in the making, arguably starting with her fateful decision to hire an Irish assistant over 20 years ago. It is a practice she continued until her appointment to the IMF in 2011.
She first came to public attention here as French finance minister where she seemed to strike up a genuine rapport with the late Irish minister for finance and Francophile Brian Lenihan. Her kind words about him after his death struck a note that resonated well in Ireland.
She was subsequently very generous to Michael Noonan as he searched for his feet as Lenihan’s successor and it fell to him to unofficially confer her “friend of Ireland” status in recent comments.
That she managed to win her place in Irish hearts while coming from a political tradition closer to Margaret Thatcher than Constance Markievicz is all the more remarkable.