French Foreign Minister Christine Lagarde has become the first woman chosen to lead the International Monetary Fund. She will replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned last month after his arrest in New York for sexually assaulting a hotel maid. Lagarde’s victory was sealed when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the United States would endorse her over the Mexican central bank governor Agustín Carstens. Carstens had sought to become the first non-European to head the Washington-based IMF.