German finance minister backs Lagarde for IMF job

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble backs his French counterpart Christine Lagarde as the EU candidate to head the International Monetary Fund, a German weekly reported on Saturday. "If Christine Lagarde decided to be a candidate, Europe would have the best chance of occupying this position again," Schaeuble told the Bild am Sonntag in an interview to be published Sunday, the weekly said in a communique. He said Lagarde, widely touted as the European favourite to replace her compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now fighting sexual assault charges, was "perfectly appropriate" for the job.