French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was chosen on Tuesday to lead the International Monetary Fund. This keeps the international lender in the hands of a European at a time of growing concern over a possible Greek debt default.

The Executive Board of the IMF says it has picked Lagarde to serve as the organization's Managing Director for a five-year term starting on July 5.

Lagarde, who succeeds Dominique Strauss-Kahn, becomes the first woman named to the top IMF post since the institution's inception in 1944.

Her selection became all but assured, once the U.S. Obama administration endorsed her earlier on Tuesday.

The 24-member IMF board says Lagarde and Mexican central bank governor Agustin Carstens are both "well qualified" candidates, and it decided on Lagarde by consensus.

Lagarde said she is "deeply honored" to have been picked as the new IMF chief.

"I feel very proud, very moved and just a little bit sad because it's a whole chapter of my life for France that I now have to move away from," said Lagarde.

In an interview on French television after the IMF announcement, Largarde said her first priority is to unify the IMF's staff of 2,500 employees and 800 economists and restore their confidence in the organization.

And for sure, she will immediately confront a European debt crisis that threatens the global economy.

(CNTV.cn June 28, 2011)