PARIS: Nicknamed ‘Zorro’ by his friends and ‘Nero’ by his enemies, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is looking increasingly like a ‘zero’ in France’s troubled political landscape. In a dramatic first year in office, the flamboyant Villepin has had to abandon controversial employment reform plans, struggle through riots in the suburbs and face accusations of trying to smear his own interior minister.

On Friday, a government source said he had been forced into another retreat, postponing his plans to merge French utilities Gaz de France and Suez in the face of truculent opposition from his own allies in the ruling UMP party.

Putting a positive spin on this latest setback, Villepin said he still hoped to enact the merger after taking into account ‘all constraints’ weighing on the plan.

But the main problem appeared to lie with the prime minister himself just months before presidential elections rather than the economic merits of the tie-up, widely seen as a defensive move to thwart any takeover bid by an Italian firm.

“The UMP parliamentarians’ real motivation (for opposing the merger) is that they no longer trust the prime minister,” said Alain Duhamel, a veteran political analyst.

“They don’t trust his way of doing things ... and they don’t believe Dominique de Villepin is any longer in a position to lead the majority in an electoral period,” he told BFM radio.

“This is unprecedented,” he added.

Ironically, the fact that elections are so close may actually give Villepin some job security, with his mentor President Jacques Chirac probably unwilling to shake up his government ahead of the May 2007 vote.

“Chirac might appoint a new prime minister, but it isn’t likely. There is no viable alternative and anybody put in (now) would basically be slaughtered,” said Paul, a professor of political science at the American University of Paris.

“Chirac and Villepin are

both lameducks,” he added.

—Reuters