No, there's another one you should interview. I don't know if one day she would accept, who is also incredible in that category. It's Meryl Streep. How do you say, Christine?
Have you already met her?
Yes. Yes. Because actually, we did two or three events for women, about women, in New York several times, twice we did it. And for one of them, she had just filmed the first version of The Devil Wears Prada. And she had said in the interview she gave to the New York Times or I don't know who, that she had accepted to do the role on the condition that she could draw inspiration from my elegance and my authority to play the role of Miranda Priestly.
And so when she saw that we were both in the program, she came after our panels and our things, and she said to me, 'Let's go have a coffee together.' Oh, that's great!
And so, we went to have a coffee and she's really a great, a great lady.
Yeah, she's a great lady. She had set aside an hour to chat about a thousand things and at the end, she told me, 'Well, I have to go because my husband isn't in very good shape right now and we have to do the garden.' I say, 'Do the garden?' She says, 'Yes, because I have beans to pick.'
Yeah. OK. You are magnificent.
Yeah. Who am I? A good average Frenchwoman.
Hello Christine Lagarde. Hello. Thank you for being with us, ladies. It's very important for us to have you. We are very honored to have you.
Well, I'm delighted to be with you and I'm delighted to be able to dialogue with you on issues that concern us all.
All of us, absolutely all of us. How old are you?
Yes, I see. I see that it's going very well. It's a surprise, 70.
No, that it's going very well. Ah no, no, no, no, no. I've never been obsessed with thresholds and... No.
Ah yes, you seem sincerely not at all surprised. It seems quite normal to me. OK. You recently gave an interview to Nicol Tangen. No one knows who that is among those watching, ladies. This boy has a lot of money. I hope we'll talk about it all. He manages, of course, the most important public financial fund in the world. In this interview, it's a professional interview. You are received as President of the ECB. And to the question 'What motivates you on a daily basis?' You answer...
Ah well yes, but that's what motivates me and who is a motor of energy and considerable confidence.
Do you imagine one of your male counterparts having this answer in that same interview setting?
No, I don't think so because first of all, a male counterpart facing the most important sovereign fund manager in the world will probably not reveal himself, firstly, and secondly, if he utters the word love, he will feel put in a situation of inferiority, of weakness, etc. Which is totally ridiculous because they are probably also, well of course, driven by things more powerful than us and which inspire us, and love.
Do you think you would have had this answer at 40 or 50, or do your 70 years allow you?
So that's a very good question because I think that experience, age, the years, of course, provide wrinkles. You may feel less physically strong, confident, etc. But it provides a kind of self-confidence.
Because you don't have much to lose. So it also allows you to appreciate the potential of truth and authenticity. So there are things I probably wouldn't have said at 40. At 50, I would have started to say them because I already told myself that 50 was respectable.
That means that you too feel this 'it's good, I don't care now'.
Of course, of course, of course. I am very, very careful because I am a central banker and when I give a press conference on the evolution of monetary policy, I must weigh my words to the letter. But for everything outside of those complicated areas, I have much more freedom. Of course.
You also say that aging doesn't frighten you because you are loved.
That's beautiful. But it's true, actually.
But yes, it's true. Of course, of course. It's a shield. It's a certainty. Love, first of all, I believe that love can only be bilateral. It's reciprocal. Otherwise, it's very painful. Otherwise, it's very painful. You love, you are not loved. You are loved, you don't love. These are always situations that are upsetting and undermining. But when it works well, in two voices like that, whether with children, your children, whether with grandchildren, whether with a partner, it's incredible as a motor of energy, as a motor of confidence, as it's also a bit of a shield sometimes when you are in situations where you are exposed, where you are vulnerable and where you can hold on to something that gives you strength. So it's the first of things, it's the priority.
Ah yes, of course. Being well loved and loving.
And loved, well loved. Yeah. Both. Both. Both. That's learned too, when you have the chance to live in and grow up in a family where love is present, where trust, respect are elements of your personal construction. Of course, you are better equipped for the future because love is a giving of oneself. So it means taking a step back, accepting your weaknesses, recognizing in the other both weaknesses and strengths.
Yeah. I'll give you a quote. 'Whoever has the same vision of life at 20 as at 50 has lost 30 years.'
I don't really like the word 'vision'. I had a great strategy professor at Northwestern University who said, 'When you hear the word vision, don't walk, run, leave.' Because I think having a vision implies you have already anticipated, built, planned, that you are on a career plan, a family plan, etc. I don't know how to work like that.
There, the President of the ECB is telling me that. Wow! It's amazing what you're telling me.
It's completely amazing for me. I don't have a vision, I have fundamental principles, yes. But a vision of what my life will be in 10 years, my professional developments in 10 years. No, you've never done that.
No. And I tell you this with all the more sincerity because people never believe me because they say, 'Well, you did that, then you went there, then you became the boss of this, etc.' They always came to get me.
No, no, I checked because you say it so I went to check and they always came to get you. So you responded to solicitations, seized opportunities that were given to you but not...
So, I responded to calls. I often took risks doing so. Yes, because in many situations, I was giving up a certain comfort. When I left the United States to return to France, it was totally idiotic from an economic point of view.
Yes. The IMF is much, much better.
No, no, it was at the time when I was in management. There, I was 25 years in the private sector and I was in an extraordinarily comfortable situation, a head of a large law firm, earning a lot of money. He had reached the top of his success and the food chain. He had managed to find many clients, etc. And there, you are offered to become Minister of the Economy and there, well, it's not the same thing at all. Minister of Foreign Trade and Dominique de Villepin tells me, 'We need you, are you coming?' I said, 'Yes, well I said no, I told him, I told him, you give me time to think.' He told me, 'Of course, but I'm not hanging up the phone.' So, I had time to reflect.
You had the right, like any woman, to the trial of incompetence. And there was a journalist at the time named Christophe Barbier. Ah yes, who called you a 'potiche' (figurehead). He left you a message, Christine.
So well yes, I asked him. So there, to the question posed by L'Express in 2009, 'Potiche or fortiche (tough)?', Christine Lagarde has answered for a long time. It's 'fortiche', notably because at the time, she anticipated the financial crisis. She convinced at that time, notably the political sphere and then of course, she imposed herself so much at the European Central Bank, she showed so much mastery and authority that the question obviously no longer arises at all.
That's his way of apologizing. That's how men apologize. Always, always, always, always. Was it unpleasant, complicated, anecdotal, the trial of incompetence?
It's always unpleasant. Always unpleasant because we all overdose on work, we prepare these files, work more, we work, we question ourselves, we research, when we arrive at responsibilities or when we arrive to make a collective or individual decision, we have really done everything that was necessary before. So to be sent back like that as 'potiche or fortiche', there have been others, it's always very unpleasant.
Because in general, you have worked more than your male counterparts.
Yeah. Some work a lot too. It's not... But in most cases, because we still have a confidence deficit for this kind of comment, we overthink.
Yeah. Has it been a long time since that happened to you? Oh, it still happens to me.
Oh, but still, but of course, of course. If... sorry, but who... finally sorry at one moment... Oh, you can see it, you can read it in the eyes, you can see it in the... and I think it's often, moreover, a kind of preconceived notion that men have when a woman speaks at a certain level or when a woman speaks at all. The number of meetings I have chaired around a table, 20 people, and then there are two or three women because in general at very high levels of responsibility, there are very few women, alas. At the moment a woman speaks, what do the others do? They take out their phones, they look at their messages, they chat a bit. And I have the infinite privilege, at the age I am, with the responsibilities I have, at that moment, to be able to tap on the microphone saying, 'We are listening to the intervention.' But you will see, you certainly see it, there is a kind of condescension.
Well yes, always. He left you another message, Christophe, I cut it in two. There, I give it to you. 'I would like to beg her not to get involved in the presidential election. Do not run in this competition where there are only blows to take. You are much more useful for France, for Europe, for the world at the central bank than in the political swamp of our presidential election.' So I who had prepared an interview, me president, what do we do now Christine? I think he's right. I think he was wrong when he asked the question 'potiche?', 'fortiche' maybe, but I think he's right.
Yet, I have questions to ask you. Let's pretend, me president, I will advance gender equality.
Well, president or not president, I make this effort every day to check that there are enough women, that we have a pipeline that moves and therefore gender equality. Obviously, obviously, obviously.
It's a challenge throughout Europe.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. There are countries more virtuous than others.
Yes, the Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland even are more advanced than the southern countries. France does pretty well in terms of regulation, legislation. When I was Managing Director of the IMF, we did a world ranking, France was in the top 10. On implementation, it's less effective than the Nordic countries. But France is not too bad, but the wage gaps are still there.
I'm going to remind you that you travel to all these countries, you go there all the time, you are there, you see it. It's not papers, it's not statistics that you see. Is there a better place than another to be a woman in Europe?
The Nordic countries. OK. So that's for the rights, easier to have days with less sun because winter is still complicated. But in terms of equality, in terms of parenthood too, in terms of systematic verification of implementation, they are stronger than us. And for older women, retirement, is there a better place than another where we are all treated the same?
We are not all treated the same because careers are different depending on the countries. If you retire in the Netherlands or in Germany for example, because professional paths involve much more part-time work, because careers are much more broken in Germany because there is no infrastructure for young children of the same nature as ours, there is much less. In any case, the pensions of women in these two countries in particular, there may be others, are often painful and we often talk about small pensions and it always concerns women in that case.
So we are lucky to be French in Europe.
Yes. And if you lead me onto this terrain, we will talk about financial education.
Yeah. My next question. Me, president, do I provide financial education to women?
An imperative responsibility for anyone who has responsibilities, especially in the financial field. But not only. We suffer throughout Europe, not just France, but we suffer throughout Europe from a major deficit in financial education.
We are about 50% less educated financially than Americans.
What does that mean, financially?
Knowing how to manage money, knowing how to invest money, knowing... for example, and in the category of those who are less educated, we find 60% women. Well yes, what does that mean? It means for example knowing the difference between a variable rate or fixed rate loan. Yeah. It means understanding how to organize a budget. It means understanding what compound interest is. There, it starts to get a bit more technical. It means calculating the time that passes and the time to come. Anticipating financial needs that we will have when we are in less good physical shape, when we are retired. Knowing if the savings we try to build, we put it on a savings plan, on a passbook, on a retirement savings plan, on stocks, etc. All that is the guarantee of autonomy, actually.
But yes, of course. You did it from what age? Are you aware of this? From what age?
For me, at 16, my father died.
I didn't want to be a financial burden for my mother who had other children, my three brothers, to support, and I started earning my living at that time while I was studying. So the awareness of money, you have the awareness of money and money is synonymous with independence for a woman in particular, well at that time, that is to say the ability to make choices without having constraints imposed on you because you don't have the means for your choices. What upsets me is the situation of these women who are, for example, victims of domestic violence, who want to leave and who don't have the money because they haven't saved because the money they earned, they had to put it on their husband's bank account who looks at them saying, 'Ah yes, you're leaving with what?' It's terrible. So financial education is an absolute imperative. It's also the famous 'yogurt tax' where we share. I pay for the apartment installments and the woman pays for the groceries and when we separate, we leave with the groceries. Of course. And one of the laws I am most proud of when I was Minister of Finance is the Lagarde law in which I forced consumer credit institutions to inform very precisely about the deadlines, the terms, the duration of loans and the solidarity between spouses when there is a community between the two and the day one leaves, the other is left with all the repayments to make.
We see that you have a lot of things to say, to share around women. And you were telling me earlier, Christophe Barbier is right, I shouldn't come into this swamp. It's a swamp. Have you thought about it?
Yes, of course, because I have friends, former colleagues, etc. who tell me, 'But you should think about it, you can, you could, etc.' No. No.
But what makes you say...
But my voice will be heard at an opportune moment on issues that seem to me to be issues of principle and fundamental issues. I don't want to speak now.
Yes. Yes, I hear. But why do you want to have an influence?
Because I think a lot of nonsense is being said.
About the role Europe plays, about the sustainability of debt, about the community we form with all the countries of the European Union, about the power dynamics between the United States, China, Europe. I've lived with this for over 20 years. And I can at least say the reality of what I have seen and what I believe so that France continues to be a strong nation.
What can you say to the women who today are listening to us, hearing your experience and who are worried about the future?
First, I believe that we women have a very intimate strength in which we must believe and on which we must rely, firstly. Secondly, I think we must imperatively verify, validate, constantly ask ourselves the question: 'Is all this true? Is what I am being told with a lot of eloquence, with good examples, is it true?' Research, verify. Trust but verify, it's very important.
Very important. It's the challenge of tomorrow. Yes. When will you speak out?
When I can, at the Apple Festival tomorrow.
Tomorrow? Tomorrow at the Apple Festival, I will talk a lot about Europe.
Yeah. OK. Do you support the international strike day on October 13th? Have you heard about it?
The World Without Women. It's inspired by something that was done in Iceland. All the women stopped.
And they obtained that everything changes. And well, it's happening at the global level and particularly in France.
So that I don't know but are you going to join? Well, I fear that in the functions I hold, I cannot go on strike on October 13th. But in spirit, if it's to demonstrate that in the field of wages, in the field of opportunities, in the field of access to careers, there is a serious deficit to fill, of course.
And that the world with women is better than the world without women.
That's the spirit. There's no comparison, it's obvious.
Do you have the retirement app on your phone, Christine Lagarde? What are you doing? You haven't consulted? You haven't opened your retirement rights?
No, no, no, but I don't think about it actually because...
No, no. And well, congratulations. But I don't think of it as a kind of deadline, as a liberation or as a kind of deadline. But I had the chance, and I must share this with the women who are listening. I had the chance when I was about to be 30, I was a junior lawyer at the time, and I had the chance to meet a banker who managed my account and who told me, 'Listen, you are a liberal professional. Retirement, you don't think about it today.' He was right. I don't think much about it now either. 'You should put a little money on a financial product and you feed it regularly like that.' I said, 'Well, if you want, yes, maybe you're right.' And I bless him to this day because it allowed me to build a retirement capital that the day I decide to stop, not for tomorrow, will be there if ever there is a hard blow, if ever there are events that require financing, well it will be there.
What are you going to do after the ECB?
No idea. But you're going to continue. I haven't heard much about recruiting 70-year-old women. It hasn't escaped you?
Ah, listen, I could, I could surprise once more.
OK. And well, once more. So, I was telling you before we started this interview, there are two women we absolutely want to receive at 'Mesdames'. You and the other is her. And I'll let you listen to what she says.
She is extraordinary, Madonna, and she tells fascinating things by apologizing to women for finding them beautiful first. Before saying they are intelligent, which is the reflex we all have. We always say, 'Ah, you've lost weight, you look great, ah how pretty you are, etc.' What would you like to value first in women?
It's not unpleasant to hear.
Of course, of course. It's nicer to hear someone say 'You're pretty' rather than 'You look tired today.'
Of course, of course. But it's first and foremost that, and we participate in that. I do it too.
What I do is that I do it with men too.
Yes. Ah, you look so handsome today.
Yes. Or 'handsome boy'. Yes.
Well yes, they do it to us. So why can't we do the reciprocal? Have you ever heard the phrase 'Ah, you are really still very beautiful for your age'?
Yes, of course. Yeah. Yes. No, I rather hear 'But how do you do it?' Because you work so much and you are 70. Yeah. How do you do it? Well, a grapefruit a day, it works.
No, by the way, I'm telling you. Frankly, I ask myself the question, you have an incredible energy and a presence. You live under the gaze of others permanently. You are a public figure, you are a figure of power, you represent a function, so you have to be careful. By the way, it's a discipline you have. A taste, what is it?
I told you, I was orphaned of my father at 16 and mom always had this kind of requirement, elegance, and I think we are very inspired by our mothers, even if we often have accounts to settle with them. But seeing her with three francs six sous and sometimes making ends meet because she was a teacher with a teacher's salary and four children to raise and seeing her always attentive to color coordination, to shoes, to bags, etc. Sometimes sewing on her sewing machine a dress she absolutely wanted to finish, buying her fabrics cheaply at the Saint-Pierre market, etc. You know, it ends up getting into your spine. And then I had the chance later when I became a lawyer to have a female boss of the firm who was the only one among the men and who was also always elegant and who always told me, 'Don't forget, dress, address, redress.' So pay attention to how you dress. Express yourself properly. Yeah. And when it's not going well. Yeah. So that stays with you.
I'm going to write it on my desk. OK. You... Yes. Yes. Of course. Was it a question for you to leave your white hair or not?
I'll tell you, the day my youngest, who was about 4 or 5, I already had salt-and-pepper hair. You have two sons. I have two sons and he, around 4 or 5, I had a lot of white hair. He grabbed a white hair, he said to me, 'Mom, it's a white hair,' and he was amazed. I told myself, 'That's it, I'm leaving it, I'm leaving it, I'm not touching it anymore.'
You realize that for women, it's a real issue. It's a huge issue at work in particular.
Yes, but I'm going to tell you something. When I arrived in Washington in 2011, I found a very nice Lebanese hairdresser who told me, 'But I'm going to find you a color.' I said, 'But no, I don't want color, I'm keeping my hair like this.' He told me, 'Oh really, but here that's not done at all.' And in the space of 3 years, practically...
All her clientele, and it was the Capitol, the representatives, the senators, etc. Half of them had said, 'Look, we're stopping, we're stopping.' That's great. It shows the value of the model is very important.
Between the ages of 15 and 17, and you've already touched on it three times, three major things happened. First, you won a medal in the French synchronized swimming championship team. Already, it's incredible that someone would do synchronized swimming, it's crazy. Okay, you win a medal. Your father dies the following year.
Your father passes away the following year, and you go to study in the United States. Three years and three major events in your life. That must have shaped your personality.
Yes, the combination of the three. Probably. Probably. Yes, yes, yes, yes, it brought you the sorrow, of course, the discipline, and the sense of destiny.
Yes. And the determination to overcome trials, to surpass oneself, and to put oneself in danger, you know.
I was the eldest of the siblings. So when you're the eldest, and I was lucky to have loving but responsible parents.
