Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French Socialist former finance minister, was yesterday appointed managing director of the International Monetary Fund having pro-mised to redouble efforts to revive the institution's fading relevance.

But the decision, which was a foregone conclusion in spite of Russia's sponsorship of a rival European candidate last month, underlined the continuing controversy over the US and Europe's carveup of the top jobs at the IMF and the World Bank.