GDF unions give opinion on Suez deal, hurdle lifted

PARIS (Reuters) - Gaz de France's works council removed a hurdle to the planned 100 billion euro ($157.5 billion) merger with Suez on Monday by giving its formal opinion on the deal, even though it came out against it.

A GDF spokeswoman said 11 of the 20 members of the CCE central works council had issued a negative vote, and added that the CGT union had abstained.

The CCE's view is not binding on GDF, but the French state-owned gas supplier needed the CCE's verdict before it could call a board meeting and an extraordinary meeting of shareholders to vote on the merger.

On Friday, a Paris court rejected a call by France's biggest labor union CGT to postpone the CCE's meeting with GDF's management on May 26.

Now GDF and Suez can go ahead with their meetings, the merger could be completed by mid-July.

The merger of the two businesses was first engineered by the previous right-wing French government at the start of 2006 to fend off the threat of a bid for Suez from Italian rival Enel.

(Reporting by Marie Maitre, editing by Will Waterman)