France seeks IMF job but Europe's grip challenged

France revealed on Friday that it wanted to reclaim the leadership of the International Monetary Fund and Poland said it could field a rival candidate as calls intensified for the abolition of Europe's monopoly of the job.
President Nicolas Sarkozy planned to use a Sunday newspaper interview to propose Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist former finance minister with solid political and economic credentials, to become the IMF's new managing director, a presidential palace source in Paris said.
Meanwhile, Poland said it would be prepared to back former central bank governor Leszek Balcerowicz as a candidate. He would be the first IMF chief from an emerging market country if he got the job. Rodrigo Rato, a Spaniard, announced abruptly last week that he planned to quit in October to dedicate more time to family.
European Union finance ministers are due to discuss options next week in Brussels but pressure is mounting for the job to be open to anyone who is good enough, irrespective of origin. The IMF board is also due to meet next week in Washington, officials there said, on prompting from developing nations who want an end to a carve-up where a European heads the IMF with US support and an American the World Bank with Europe's blessing.
The duopoly has existed since the institutions were created after World War Two, but no longer so truly reflects the balance of economic power since the rise of China and other giants that were economic minnows half a century ago.
Strauss-Kahn was not immediately available for comment. But the idea may look attractive for a Socialist grandee whose options appear limited after a general election defeat which has plunged his party into disarray. The presidential palace official said Sarkozy was likely to announce his decision to propose Strauss-Kahn in the Journal du Dimanche, due out on Sunday.
In Le Monde newspaper on Friday, chief Sarkozy adviser Claude Gueant was quoted as saying, "It would be good to regain this position for France." Frenchman Michel Camdessus held the post from 1987 until 2000 and before him compatriot Jacques de Larosiere for almost a decade.
In Warsaw, a government spokesman said Poland would support Balcerowicz, who might go down better with emerging market countries, if his candidacy for the IMF job were made official. Balcerowicz, architect of a post-communist Polish economic reform plan as finance minister in the 1990s, often clashed as central banker with the current rightist government. He was travelling abroad and unavailable for immediate comment.
In Italy, government spokesman Silvio Sircana said he was not aware of any candidates from there, although the name of central bank chief Mario Draghi circulated in recent days, and some say he may be more interested than he first signalled.
Other European names cited included Briton Andrew Crockett, ex-head of the Bank for International Settlements, and France's Jean Lemierre, who has said he is happy as president of the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Dutch former finance minister Gerrit Zalm dismissed media reports that he might seek the job, telling Reuters: "I am flattered, but I am not interested."
Pressure is mounting from the Group of 11, which represents more than 110 emerging and developing countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, for the next IMF head to be selected on merit, not nationality.
"This is not the time to be talking about candidates. We want to agree on a process of selection and we want that process to include candidates from other parts of the world, not only Europe," said one senior board official from a developing country.
"A meeting of the board has been called for Monday and we hope a process for selection can be agreed that will be open to anybody," the official said, adding there was at least one G-11 member which indicated it planned to put forward a candidate. In 2004, Egyptian-born Mohamed El-Erian, a former senior IMF official, was nominated by Egypt as a candidate for the job which in the end went to Rato.