The king is dead; long live the queen. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French erstwhile managing director of the International Monetary Fund, had not even resigned before Europeans started to coalesce around Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, as his successor. Gone are past promises of an open selection. The Europeans insist on the principle that what we have we hold. The ancien régime survives.
國王已死;女王萬歲。甚至在昔日的國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)總裁、法國人多米尼克•斯特勞斯-卡恩(Dominique Strauss-Kahn)辭職之前,歐洲人就開始聯合推舉法國財長克莉絲蒂娜•拉加德(Christine Lagarde)作爲卡恩的繼任者。公開遴選的過往承諾已隨風而逝。歐洲人堅持的原則是,我們要堅守既有規則。「舊制度」已經復活。(舊制度:Ancien Régime,指的是由瓦盧瓦王朝到波旁王朝建立的影響法國政治及社會形態的貴族制系統,這套系統在法國大革命中瓦解——譯者注)