IMF chief Christine Lagarde is set to flee France for New York after being found guilty of financial negligence.

Frenchwoman Lagarde escaped punishment in her homeland but will have to face the music in the Big Apple after embarrassing the body.

3 Head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde has been found guilty of "negligence by a person in a position of public authority" Credit: Getty Images

Her role heading up the IMF is now in doubt after the scandal.

Paris judges today found Lagarde guilty of financial negligence – but she will not be formally punished.

The 60-year-old was not in the specially convened Court of Justice of the Republic to hear the ‘symbolic verdict’.

Instead it was left to her defence barrister Patrick Maisonneuve to say: "We would have preferred an acquittal pure and simple."

While Ms Lagarde has escaped a possible year in prison, the conviction puts her job at the head of the world banking system in serious jeopardy.

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Colleagues at the IMF – which is meant to safeguard global financial stability – have supported her throughout her court ordeal, and were by no means expecting a guilty verdict.

Even prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin had told the court: "The hearings have not backed up a very weak charge."

Despite this, Ms Lagarde was found guilty of ‘negligence by a person in a position of public authority’.

More specifically, Mrs Lagade was accused of paying flamboyant tycoon Bernard Tapie £335m when she was France’s finance minister eight years ago.

A scornful report by investigating judges accused Mrs Lagarde of ‘a conjunction of faults which, by their nature, number and seriousness, exceed the level of mere negligence.’

In turn, a sobbing Mrs Lagarde told the court on Friday: “This five day hearing put an end to a five-year ordeal for my partner, my sons, my brothers, who are here in this courtroom.

"In this case, like in all the other cases, I acted with trust and with a clear conscience with the only intention of defending the public interest."

3 Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy also faces charges relating to corruption Credit: Getty Images

She denied acting on the orders of her immediate boss in 2008, the controversial former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mr Sarkozy, who is facing numerous corruption accusations of his own, was a notorious ally of the super rich before his political career ended.

The complicated Lagarde case dated back to France being sued for compensation by Mr Tapie after he sold his stake in sports company Adidas to Credit Lyonnais in 1993.

Mr Tapie claimed the bank, which was state owned at the time, had defrauded him after it resold his stake for a much higher sum.

Mrs Lagarde, who was finance minister from 2007 to 2011, signed off on the massive out-of-court settlement to Mr Tapie, a Sarkozy supporter.

Although arbitration judges originally ruled in Mr Tapie’s favour and sanctioned the £335m payment, appeal courts have since ruled against it.

Mr Tapie has accordingly been told to reimburse the state, but continues to fight the refund through his lawyers.

He is no stranger to court action, having been sentenced in 1995 to two years in prison for match fixing when he was the owner of Marseille football club.

Beyond prison, Mrs Lagarde had faced a fine equivalent to £12,500, but that too has now been ruled out.

3 Lagarde sobbed in the dock when she found out she would face no further action

Mrs Lagarde’s trial was only the fifth in the history of the Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal sitting at the Paris Palais de Justice that tries ministers for crimes in office.

It is composed of three judges and 12 parliamentarians drawn from the National Assembly and Senate.

The court sat in the chamber where Queen Marie Antoinette was sentenced to death by guillotine in 1793.

Mrs Lagarde’s immediate predecessor at the IMF was fellow countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn who quit in 2011 after being accused of trying to rape a chambermaid in a New York hotel room.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, also a former French finance minister, faced a series of other sex scandals, including criminal trials, but was eventually cleared on all charges.

Spaniard Rodrigo Rato, another former IMF chief, is currently standing trial for misusing funds when he was head of Bankia.

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