"I think that we have a very good candidate for the World Bank," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said of Banga during a news conference at the G20 finance leaders meeting in India.
The comments marked a turnabout from Tuesday, when Germany's international development minister, Svenja Schulze, who represents a different party in Germany's coalition government, said the next World Bank chief should be a woman.
The G20 ministers meeting is being held on the outskirts of the Indian tech hub city of Bengaluru.
'UNIQUE SET OF SKILLS'The United States, the lender's dominant shareholder, has chosen every World Bank president since the founding of the institution at the end of World War Two.
World Bank staff are bracing for Banga to make some management changes at the bank, emboldened by Yellen's repeated calls for "bolder and more imaginative" action by the bank, two bank sources told Reuters.