--- title: "Christine Lagarde: Interview with La Croix" description: Lagarde gives an interview, not a policy signal, and the policy content is largely restatement. The full read is on Helious, with the market reaction. source: Helious canonical: "https://helious.io/news/ead7e143560026547404c61b3758e05f/christine-lagarde-interview-with-la-croix" --- ECB 30 Sept 2026, 17:00 UTC # Christine Lagarde: Interview with La Croix ## SPEECH DIGEST HAWKISH low confidence · 18.0k characters read Lagarde gives an interview, not a policy signal, and the policy content is largely restatement. She confirms the ECB raised rates in June and September and holds the line that price stability is the priority, framing the Middle East energy shock as the immediate threat and saying the ECB may raise rates further to stop it feeding into inflation, even at the cost of growth. The genuinely new items are institutional and backward-looking: she does not rule out leaving a few months before her term ends in October 2027, and she concedes the ECB got 2021 wrong on the energy shock. **What’s new: **On policy direction, close to nothing material. The June and September hikes and the hawkish, data-dependent stance are the prevailing read and already priced. What is new: her explicit openness to an early exit a few months before October 2027, and the mea culpa that in 2021 "the energy shock would be temporary and therefore wouldn't require an immediate response. Events proved us wrong." Neither shifts the rate path. ### KEY FINDINGS - Lagarde does not rule out leaving a few months before the end of her term: "I don't rule out the possibility of leaving a few months before the end of my term, but I haven't announced anything specific and one thing is certain: I will still be here in 2027." Succession uncertainty at the ECB is a slow-burn risk premium for the front end, though she caps it at a few months and confirms she stays through 2027. - She confirms the June and September hikes and keeps a hawkish tilt, saying the ECB may raise rates "at the risk of weighing on the financing of the economy and consequently on growth" to stop the energy supply shock feeding through. Against a market worried about growth, this reaffirms inflation-fighting over activity support, a hawkish framing for the front end. - She concedes the 2021 error: "In 2021 in particular, we thought that the energy shock would be temporary and therefore wouldn't require an immediate response. Events proved us wrong." A credibility mea culpa, not a forward signal; markets take it as a reason the ECB will not repeat the delay, mildly hawkish insurance. - On France she cites euro area growth of 0.9% versus 0.5% for France and warns debt near 120% of GDP is "a serious matter" as governments compete with private financing needs, which "may increase the cost of financing public debt." Puts spread risk in OATs back on the table, though she stresses it is not 2008 or 2011. ### FROM THE DOCUMENT This may lead us to raise rates, at the risk of weighing on the financing of the economy and consequently on growth. Our task is rather to prevent a supply shock – in this case the falling supply and increasing cost of energy – from feeding through the economy durably and driving up inflation. You have experienced all the major crises: the financial crisis of 2008 when you were the French Minister of the Economy, the Greek crisis and sovereign debt crisis in Europe when you were head of the International Monetary Fund, then later, as President of the ECB, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and now the conflict in the Middle East. Has it become the normal state of affairs for the world to be in a crisis situation? There have always been economic and financial crises. What is new is how they are linked together. The pandemic gave rise to pressures on energy and raw materials, then came the invasion of Ukraine which worsened the energy crisis and the inflation surge. Crises no longer follow one after the other, they are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. This is an unprecedented reality that we must now face. [ Read the full ECB interview at the source →](https://www.ecb.europa.eu//press/inter/date/2026/html/ecb.in260930~10084a5f3d.en.html) Copy link [Follow this live on the Helious desk →](https://helious.io/)