Bank of France chief Mr Jean-Claude Trichet will have to wait until the end of April to know whether French state prosecutors want him tried over a bank scandal that has hurt his hopes of becoming European Central Bank president.
French judiciary officials said today that public prosecutors were not in a position to deliver recommendations by the end of March on whether Mr Trichet and others under inquiry over the early 1990s Credit Lyonnais bank scandal should stand trial.
"It will be a few weeks later, most likely end-April," a judiciary official said.
The delay prolongs the agony for Mr Trichet, "heir apparent" to Mr Wim Duisenberg as ECB president, and could prevent any attempts to confirm him as successor to Mr Duisenberg when European finance ministers next meet in Oviedo, Spain, in mid-April.
Mr Trichet was put under official investigation in mid-2000 as part of a vast judicial inquiry into the near demise of Lyonnais and an alleged coverup of huge losses 10 years ago when he was director of the French treasury.
Credit Lyonnais was state-owned at the time.