Lagarde Rehearses Greek Dealmaker Role in Bid for Compromise

Christine Lagarde has played multiple parts in Greece’s debt saga. Now she’s prepping for her defining role.

At the outset more than five years ago, she was France’s finance minister, exhorting Greece to play by the euro area’s rules. With the rulebook in tatters, Lagarde, now managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has taken on the delicate task of urging the principal antagonists to drop entrenched positions to prevent a default. Her condition: The numbers must add up to a sustainable path for Europe’s most indebted nation, or the IMF won’t sign off.