THE daughter of Dominique de Villepin, the dashing but unpopular French Prime Minister, has been chosen by Givenchy to model its perfume, Angel or Demon.

Marie de Villepin, 20, who has inherited her father’s good looks but not his disastrous public image, has been selected for a campaign to “reveal the darker side of women”.

She will use her stage name, Steiss, to avoid accusations that she is exploiting her father’s position. The advertisements show her under a chandelier next to the slogan “ange ou démon elle seule le sait” (angel or demon only she knows).

Isabelle Gex, the vice-president of global marketing at Givenchy, said that Mlle de Villepin had been selected to represent an “oriental floral scent of strange sensuality” because of her “dual identity”.

“She has very soft blonde hair with blue eyes, and yet a toughness in her eyes and strength in her face itself.”

The same features are evident in M de Villepin, who enjoyed the finest moment of his premiership when his tanned, muscular body was captured by photographers on the Atlantic Coast last summer.

This was a rare occasion when he drew flattering comparisons with his great rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, who is a much smaller man. But M de Villepin may be less pleased to be associated with Givenchy’s claim that its perfume symbolised its aristocratic roots. He wants to play down his patrician background, dropping the noble-sounding “de” from his name.

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