PARIS, Sept 1: Suez and Gaz de France resumed talks on Saturday to try to reach a deal on a delayed 90-billion-euro ($122.9 billion) merger, with an announcement possible on Monday.

Suez has, according to sources close to the situation, bowed to pressure from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to split its business and shed part of its historic water assets to salvage a merger agreement with state-controlled GDF.

“As the Elysee’s secretary general (Claude Gueant) has indicated, if an accord were to be concluded, the firms would talk about it on Monday,” a spokesman at Sarkozy’s office, the Elysee, told Reuters.

Sarkozy met a representative of the CGT trade union at the Lanterne lodge near the palace of Versailles on Saturday to discuss the merger.

“The President indicated that the state would have something like 40 per cent” in any merged firm, a CGT trade union official told Reuters after the meeting.

The CGT also said it had been given signs that the firms were making progress in their talks: “The boards were informed that they will be called, that it (a meeting of the boards) was in the process of being prepared,” the CGT official said.

GDF and Sarkozy’s office declined to comment on repeated reports during the day that a joint board meeting could be held on Sunday afternoon. Suez was not immediately available for comment.—Reuters