Christine Lagarde, a Stellar Career Haunted by Greece

Christine Lagarde has crossed the Atlantic to swap her job as a French minister for a place in the global economic elite at the head of the International Monetary Fund.

But she has never been able to leave behind one extreme headache: Greece.

In Washington as in Paris, the meteoric career of the 59-year-old lawyer has repeatedly been waylaid by Athens and its financial troubles.

And the Greek crisis is coming to a head just as Lagarde weighs whether to renew her position next year as managing director of the IMF.

When the first rescue plan for Greece was crafted by the IMF and European union in 2010, Lagarde's star was already high, as France's first female economy minister.

In that job she was constantly tied down by the problems of Greece and the other troubled countries of the European periphery.

Then in July 2011, after Dominique Strauss-Kahn was forced out as IMF managing director in a sex scandal, Lagarde was chosen to take charge of the crisis bank.

The move gave her a powerful seat inside the closed circle of the world's leaders, but also responsibility for what proved to be an intractable crisis that threatened the whole European economy.

Less than a year after her arrival, the initial rescue plan for Greece crumbled and the IMF was forced to join an expanded second bailout operation, taking the bailout cost to a massive 240 billion euros ($270 billion).

Yet Greece kept bleeding, and now even that plan has proven inadequate. For months Lagarde has been locked into crunch talks for extending the bailout. If they fail, Greece could default on its IMF loans and possibly make a disastrous exit from the eurozone.

The crisis keeps her intimately wrapped up in the heart of European affairs.

"She knows by heart the situation in Brussels and everyone there knows her by heart," said a person close to her.

The mother of two, a former synchronized swimming champion, is used to marathon negotiations and charms audiences and power-brokers around the world with her diplomatic tact.

But she also shows a talent for spare but biting words. Even before she reached the IMF, she was already known for telling the French complaining of high gasoline prices in 2007 to "use their bicycles".

In the spring of 2012, she ruffled the Greeks when, with the country already suffering a brutal austerity regime, she demanded that they "pay their taxes".

And in recent days, after another round in the five-month-old negotiations between creditors and Greece ended without progress, she dryly bemoaned the lack of "adults in the room", implicitly pointing at Athens' representation.

"She's a person that can be very polite, very nice but can be also very harsh and even scary when she wants to make a point," said Andrea Montanino, Italy's former representative at the IMF.

On the world stage, she has now earned equal billing next to other female stars, like Hillary Clinton or Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen.

Always smartly dressed, her silver hair perfectly coiffed, she brings to discussions an aura of style, intellect, and strength.

She argues and cajoles over policy, going so far at one point to promise a belly dance at the U.S. Capitol if legislators would ratify a much-delayed IMF reform. So far they haven't, and she hasn't danced.

The unending Greek crisis though has Lagarde being pulled by different parties and her career reputation at stake in the outcome.

Europeans have always led the IMF, and as one, Lagarde cannot turn her back on the continent's problems.

But she is responsible to the IMF's 188 member states, and has to be sensitive to other agendas. In the case of Greece, emerging economic powers have expressed unhappiness over the record sums of money allocated to prop up Athens.

"She's tough on Greece because she cannot stretch the IMF rules," said Montanino.

She recently made clear she could be available for a renewal next year of her term as IMF managing director.

But she faces a few hurdles. The failure to advance IMF reforms is one. Another is a lengthy French corruption case dating back to her time as minister that goes on trial next year.

But the principal issue weighing in the balance is Greece.

"If Greece blows up and defaults on the IMF, this would be a huge failure for her," said Desmond Lachman, a former senior IMF official.