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 LONDON — Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief, has succeeded in generating some rare unanimity in crisis-hit Greece with remarks in which she described the Greeks as tax-dodgers. 
 
 “Insulting,” said Evangelos Venizelos, the Socialist leader, in response to an interview Ms. Lagarde gave to The Guardian, a British newspaper. “Greek workers pay their taxes, which are unbearable,” said Alexis Tsipras of the far-left Syriza party. 
 
 As of Monday, more than 19,000 comments had been posted on Ms. Lagarde’s Facebook page, many from Greeks and most uncomplimentary. 
 
 The controversy also spilled over to her native France, where Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the government spokeswoman, described Ms. Lagarde’s view of the Greeks as “a bit of a caricature.” 
 
 Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of France’s left-wing Front de Gauche, suggested she should quit and demanded to know what right she had to make “unworthy” comments about the Greeks. 
 
 In the offending interview, published Saturday, the I.M.F. boss appeared to place the blame firmly on the Greeks for their present economic mess and suggested “all these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax” should help themselves collectively by paying it. 
 
 In the furor that followed, Ms. Lagarde issued a statement expressing sympathy for the Greeks and the challenges they were facing. That was why the I.M.F. was supporting Greece’s efforts to overcome its economic crisis, she said. 
 
 She tempered her original point by adding: “An important part of this effort is that everyone should carry their fair share of the burden, especially the most privileged and especially in terms of paying their taxes.” 
 
 While Ms. Lagarde’s Facebook page was overwhelmed with comments, some Greeks set up a rival page to channel the national outrage. Commentary on social media accused Ms. Lagarde of preaching to poor Greeks from the position of a highly paid — and untaxed — international bureaucrat. 
 
 That came with advice to stay out of Greece: 
 
 M/s Lagarde would be well advised never to step foot on Greek soil — unless of course she can withstand the wrath of the Greek people ! — Taking On Banks (@bankcustomers) May 28, 2012 
 
 Bill Mitchell, an Australian economist, wrote in his blog on Monday that her remarks fit into a pattern of bullying by international institutions as Greece headed for a new round of elections next month. 
 
 The Guardian itself challenged Ms. Lagarde’s views in a follow-up editorial suggesting that, as French finance minister at the end of the boom years, she was partly responsible for Europe’s current financial plight. 
 
 “Not only should Christine Lagarde know better, she does know better,” the newspaper said. 
 
 Criticizing her for placing the blame on spendthrift southern European nations, it said: “Imprudent borrowers require foolhardy lenders, and in Greece and elsewhere that role has often been played by northern European banks.” ||||| The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after its managing director, Christine Lagarde, said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens. 
 
 In an uncompromising interview with the Guardian, Lagarde insists it is payback time for Greece and makes it clear that the IMF has no intention of softening the terms of the country's austerity package. 
 
 Using some of the bluntest language of the two-and-a-half-year debt crisis, she says Greek parents have to take responsibility if their children are being affected by spending cuts. "Parents have to pay their tax," she says. 
 
 Greece, which has seen its economy shrink by a fifth since the recession began, has been told to cut wages, pensions and public spending in return for financial help from the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank. 
 
 Asked whether she is able to block out of her mind the mothers unable to get access to midwives or patients unable to obtain life-saving drugs, Lagarde replies: "I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day, sharing one chair for three of them, and who are very keen to get an education. I have them in my mind all the time. Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens." 
 
 Lagarde, predicting that the debt crisis has yet to run its course, adds: "Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." She says she thinks "equally" about Greeks deprived of public services and Greek citizens not paying their tax. 
 
 "I think they should also help themselves collectively." Asked how, she replies: "By all paying their tax." 
 
 Asked if she is essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe that they have had a nice time and it is now payback time, she responds: "That's right." 
 
 The intervention by Lagarde comes after the caretaker Greek government met to discuss a sharp fall in tax revenues – down by a third in a year. Under the terms of the country's bailout, Athens has agreed to improve Greece's poor record for tax collection in order to reduce its budget deficit, and Lagarde's remarks are evidence of a growing impatience in the international community. Reports surfaced in Germany and France of preparations being made to cope with Greece's possible departure from the single currency after its election on 17 June. 
 
 Belgium's deputy prime minister, Didier Reynders, said it would be a "serious professional error" if central banks and companies did not prepare for an exit. 
 
 The euro came under fresh attack on the foreign exchanges, dropping below €1.25 at one point on Friday, as the Spanish government was in talks to pump up to €19bn of rescue finance into Bankia, one of the country's biggest banks, and the Catalan regional government sought financial help from Madrid to deal with its debts. 
 
 Signs emerged of a widening gulf between Germany and France over whether common eurobonds should be issued to help those countries, such as Greece and Spain, with high interest rates on their debt. 
 
 Jens Weidmann, president of the Bundesbank, poured cold water on the idea – which is strongly backed by the French president, François Hollande – and also said financial aid to Greece should be cut off if it failed to keep to the bailout deal. 
 
 Jürgen Fitschen, joint head of Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche, described Greece as "a failed state … a corrupt state". Separately, however, there were reports suggesting that the chancellor, Angela Merkel, was dusting down the economic modernisation plan used to revive East Germany after the fall of communism in the belief that similar measures could be applied to Greece and other struggling eurozone countries. Today's Der Spiegel magazine says Merkel will present a six-point plan based on the East German blueprint as a growth strategy. It includes measures such as privatisation, looser employment law and lower tax rates. 
 
 Opinion polls are pointing to a close race between parties backing and opposing the terms of Greece's €130bn bailout, but neither Germany nor the IMF has demonstrated any willingness to water down Greece's austerity programme. 
 
 In her interview Lagarde says Greece is not getting softer treatment than a poor country in the developing world, and that the IMF does not find it harder to impose strong conditions on a rich nation. 
 
 "No, it's not harder. No. Because it's the mission of the fund, and it's my job to say the truth, whoever it is across the table. And I tell you something: it's sometimes harder to tell the government of low-income countries, where people live on $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000 per capita per year, to actually strengthen the budget and reduce the deficit. Because I know what it means in terms of welfare programmes and support for the poor. It has much bigger ramifications." ||||| Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on Friday that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged. 
 
 As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year is not subject to any taxes. 
 
 The former French finance minister took over as managing director of the IMF last year when she succeeded her disgraced compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was forced to resign after he faced charges – later dropped – of sexually attacking a New York hotel maid. 
 
 Lagarde, 56, receives a pay and benefits package worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States government, and he pays taxes on it. 
 
 The same applies to nearly all United Nations employees – article 34 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations of 1961, which has been signed by 187 states, declares: "A diplomatic agent shall be exempt from all dues and taxes, personal or real, national, regional or municipal." 
 
 According to Lagarde's contract she is also entitled to a pay rise on 1 July every year during her five-year contract. 
 
 Base salaries range from $46,000 to $80,521. Senior salaries range between $95,394 and $123,033 but these are topped up with adjustments for the cost of living in different countries. A UN worker based in Geneva, for example, will see their base salary increased by 106%, in Bonn by 50.6%, Paris 62% and Peshawar 38.6%. Even in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, one of the poorest areas of the world, a UN employee's salary will be increased by 53.2%. 
 
 Other benefits include rent subsidies, dependency allowances for spouses and children, education grants for school-age children and travel and shipping expenses, as well as subsidised medical insurance. 
 
 For many years critics have complained that IMF, World Bank, and United Nations employees are able to live large at international taxpayers' expense. 
 
 During the 1944 economic conference at Bretton Woods, where the IMF was created, American and British politicians disagreed over salaries for the bureaucrats. British delegates, including the economist John Maynard Keynes, considered the American proposals for salaries to be "monstrous", but lost the argument. 
 
 Officials from the various organisations have long maintained that the high salaries are a way of attracting talent from the private sector. In fact, most senior employees are recruited from government posts.
– IMF chief Christine Lagarde probably wants this one back: She infuriated Greeks last week by asserting that a big part of the nation's financial crisis is "all these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." It's time for this nation of tax-dodgers to pay up, she declared. After getting bombarded by critics on Facebook, Lagarde walked back the criticism a bit, notes the New York Times. But today, the Guardian follows up with more fodder for her critics: LaGarde has to pay no taxes at all on her own $468,000 salary. "I suppose we can have a discussion about why international organization employees shouldn’t pay taxes," writes David Dayen at Firedog Lake. "But the bigger issue is that Lagarde surely knew at the time of making comments about evil tax evaders that she paid no tax on her salary. This reeks of the attitude of one system for the little people, and one for the elites, which characterizes elite discourse in this day and age."