克里斯汀·拉加德接受《读卖新闻》专访

Interview with Yomiuri Shimbun

Interview with Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, conducted by Hironari Akiyama on 4 November 2026

7 November 2026

On the glass ceiling and women in power – could you share your own experiences for Japanese women, not least because you know their situation as well?

I discussed this topic a lot with Prime Minister Abe and his wife. He was determined to make a change for Japan at the time, and he had this programme called “One Million Women”. He got one million additional women into the workplace by implementing quite a few policies that were really helpful, like giving more freedom to the municipalities to open childcare centres.

So thanks to Prime Minister Abe things changed a lot. And it helped women access positions of professional responsibility.

At the ECB you became the first female leader. Did you have any difficulties or challenges in terms of being the first woman to lead the ECB?

It’s always challenging to be in a minority. In Governing Council meetings, when I look around the table, there are 27 people seated, and only two women. So that’s definitely a minority. Isabel Schnabel, who is a Member of the Executive Board and who is stepping down at the beginning of January, and me. So just two. It’s always a challenge when you’re a minority, but I think when you reach that sort of high level, because you are the President, people have to accept that, because it’s a matter of institutional strength and it’s a matter of governance as well. But it’s challenging, yes, of course.

But the situation has not changed from seven years ago. I mean, seven years ago, there was...

There was one single woman.

What do you think? Why did this happen?

Those decisions are made by the governments of the Member States and, typically, governments go for a man. First of all, because I think that while the pipeline of talented women is building up, this is only a recent development. And second, because people tend to choose other people who look like them. So you have many men in government, and they tend to appoint other men.

I want to ask about monetary policy. Sorry to change to a serious question. How do you see the inflation outlook now?

The other one was serious as well. Both questions are serious.

Headline inflation in October was at 4%, which was higher than we had expected a few months ago but in line with market expectations. It looks very high. But it’s important to look under the hood.

It’s largely attributable to energy, because energy inflation increased to 20.8%, up from 18.9% in September, driven by the conflict in the Middle East and less global refinery capacity. So energy is weighing heavily on our inflation numbers. Food inflation has also increased.

But the underlying indicators are stable. Core inflation, taking out energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, was 2.5%, unchanged from September. Services inflation edged up a little to 3.3% but remains in the range we have seen over the last four months.

We still don’t have the detailed inflation breakdown, which will shed more light on what’s driving services inflation – that is, whether it’s mainly very energy intensive sectors like transport or whether we are starting to see broader indirect effects. We’ll look closely at this.

In any event, we know that inflation numbers will remain high in the quarters to come. The higher they are, and the longer they remain high, the greater the risk to our medium-term target.

How about second-round effects? Are they still limited?

Yes. We are currently not seeing signs of second-round effects beyond what we have incorporated in our projections. We’re watching carefully the forward-looking indicators – multi-year wage agreements, companies’ wage expectations – and we don’t see evidence of a shift yet.

I understand, but can we expect you to revise the projections upwards because inflation is at 4%?

I don’t think it’s appropriate to pre-empt the forecast. But clearly there have been some important changes since our September projections. Energy futures curves are higher, which will have a bearing on both inflation and growth, although oil prices have come down more recently. Long-term interest rates are also higher. Our forecast exercise will determine how these different forces affect medium-term inflation.

Looking back to 2021, to the energy shock and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some people have pointed out that the ECB was behind the curve.

Yes. I know

It’s so important for Japanese people to know what you learnt about that.

It’s not something that was specific to Europe, but to all of us. I remember vividly the discussions we had at the Bank for International Settlements, and everybody from the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the ECB, we all assessed that we were facing a supply shock that was going to be transitory. As a result we decided that it was appropriate to look through it and let supply-driven inflation come back down, just as it had gone up. That was, in hindsight, misguided because the situation was much more complicated. There was a demand shock happening at the same time as the economy reopened and consumers spending their built-up savings. So that led us all to revisit our assumption that it was all transitory.

So, learning from this, do you think there is a need for an interest rate hike before any secondary effects become apparent?

I think what we have experienced recently, and are still experiencing, massively, is uncertainty. Unpredictability. The fragmentation of the world as we knew it. Trade disruptions, supply chain disruptions, and a focus on security more than efficiency – all of that is completely changing the landscape in which economic players are operating. And as a result of that situation, we have established that we will decide our monetary policy on the basis of data and meeting by meeting.

So, I cannot tell you today that we will for sure do this in December. What I know is that, on the basis of the information we have today, it would take significant changes for the direction of travel to be different from what I expect. That’s what I said during my press conference.

I want to change the subject and ask you about France. We are very worried about France as long-term interest rates have risen. So, how do you assess the risk of France’s fiscal problem spreading to the euro area? Do you have any concerns about this?

The long end of the curve has risen across the world, so it’s not only a European phenomenon. And it’s caused by several factors, such as higher inflation due to geopolitical disruptions, higher sovereign debt issuance globally and competition between sovereign financing needs and the hyperscalers. You have sovereigns with a high level of debt which need more financing. And you have the hyperscalers and the whole AI sector, which is also in need of financing. So, you have competition.

Now, in Europe, those Member States that have a high debt level are even more sensitive to these higher global rates, and that’s what we observe. So, it makes the requirement to comply with the fiscal framework even more acute and stronger, and that’s what we have advocated for in our monetary policy statement. Please, Member States, apply the rules, respect the rules, play by the rules.

Will you use the Transmission Protection Instrument if necessary?

We have multiple tools. We have a big toolbox, and no tool is ruled out in advance. They all correspond to certain criteria and conditions, and require a judgement call by the Governing Council. Whatever is appropriate and called for will be used, under the conditions and with the criteria that would apply.

You also mentioned AI. In Japan, there have been lots of cyberattacks using AI. I would like to ask about the risk of AI, especially for financial stability or payment systems. How do you prepare?

Well, you’ve put your finger on something that is very important to all of us, because cybe