Brussels -- New Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme is as well known at home for a series of faux pas as for his ability to boomerang back into high office.

Leterme, restored to the premiership by King Albert II on Wednesday after Herman Van Rompuy was named the European Union's first president, has frequently upset the French-speaking half of his bitterly-divided country.

One of the 49-year-old conservative's worst gaffes was calling the small European kingdom of some 10 million people "an accident of history," although many among the Flemish majority to which he largely owes allegiance would firmly agree.

Certainly, singing 'La Marseillaise' when asked if he knew the Belgian national anthem was particularly offensive to the fiercely proud, French-speaking Belgian Walloons.

If he were a comedian, he might well have made any pub list of 10 famous Belgians for a gem of a quip in which he suggested that all the Belgian people share is their "king, national football team and certain beers."

That, of course, could prove to be a phrase that comes back to haunt him in his second stint as head of government as he bids to hold down divisions based on linguistic lines, but which are mainly echoed in economic and political grievances.

He has also previously disparaged French speakers by suggesting they lack the "intellectual capacity" to learn Dutch.

At a time when Belgian unionists on both sides of the tracks -- the country also has a small German-speaking minority -- fear a return to separatist tensions, a past claim that Belgium has no "intrinsic value" even as a federal state could also bite him in the behind.

Leterme, who was forced out of office in December 2008 amid a banking bailout scandal, returned as Van Rompuy's foreign minister in the summer.

Dubbed by local newspapers as the equivalent of an unlit lantern -- in a French-language play on his name -- Leterme only succeeded in forming a coalition first time out in March 2008.