Testy Under Pressure

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has always espoused a "great man" approach to history and his job: his hero is Napoleon, and his watchword during a turbulent year in office has been voluntarisme, or willpower. "Villepin always wants to go it alone, with great enthusiasm and resolve," says Axel Poniatowski, a deputy of Villepin's own ruling conservative Union for a Popular Movement (ump), "but he runs right into walls."

Poniatowski was among the majority of ump deputies who refused to back Villepin's plan last week to facilitate the merger of Franco-Belgian utility Suez with Gaz de France (GDF) by slashing the French state's 80% share in GDF. "Even the ump deputies are now acting like the opposition," says political scientist Dominique Reynié of Sciences Po.

Adding to the turbulence, last week Villepin sued three authors for libel over claims linked to the murky Clearstream affair, then let his frustration boil over in the face of charges that he was too eager to protect embattled EADS co-ceo Noël Forgeard in the face of expensive Airbus production delays and an investigation into the propriety of stock sales. When Socialist leader François Hollande said Villepin inspired "no confidence," the Prime Minister summoned his most arrogant tone, saying: "I denounce the easiness, and I say it to your face, the cowardice in your attitude." The next day he took it back, but the sense of a government on edge remained.

While few insiders think President Jacques Chirac will drop Villepin, he might counsel him to study a little more about how Napoleon succeeded, at least for a while, by inspiring his troops.