IMF must end its 'imperialist' ways: France

Several countries are deeply scarred by the "imperialist" approach taken by International Monetary Fund in past lending packages and the institution must improve its public relations, France said on Sunday.
Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said there was widespread support for boosting funding for the IMF at a meeting of G20 financial officials discussing the credit crisis, but the lender needed to change its methods.
"I think that the old-school IMF has left some scars and I think there is a real work of communication and maybe changing the methods," Lagarde told reporters in Brazil's financial capital Sao Paulo, where the annual G20 meeting is being held.
"Some states, I think about one or two that we saw yesterday in the bilateral meetings, remember the IMF can use this very orthodox and imperialist...approach to economic analysis and on conditionally prescriptions that are demanded of countries."
Lagarde met on Saturday with the delegation from Argentina, one of the IMF's biggest critics. Relations between Argentina and the IMF soured during the country's 2001-2002 financial crisis. Argentina complained about the conditions the IMF imposed on its loans were partly responsible for causing the crisis.
Former President Nestor Kirchner has said there was "no way in hell" he would ever agree to another IMF accord. His wife, Cristina Fernandez, is the current president.
But Lagarde said other countries were unhappy with the IMF's past performance.
"They (Argentina) are not the only ones. They don't hate the IMF. They have scars," she said. "The IMF has been dormant in the last few years because it has not been necessary," Lagarde added. "It is becoming necessary again because a certain number of countries have asked for aid."
France, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, wants to reinforce the IMF with new funds and new powers.
Last month, the IMF approved a new short-term lending facility for emerging market economies that have been hurt by the global credit crunch and which could provide them with funding without the strings traditionally attached to aid. Russia also bears a grudge against the IMF, which provided advice for many ill-fated market reforms in the 1990s.
A senior Kremlin official said on Friday that Russia would be pushing for a diminished role for the IMF at the G20 leaders summit in Washington on November 15.