  We propose a novel approach to the confinement-deconfinement transition in
Yang-Mills theories in the context of gauge-fixed calculations. The method is
based on a background-field generalisation of the Landau gauge (to which it
reduces at vanishing temperature) with a given, center-symmetric background.
This is to be contrasted with most implementations of background field methods
in gauge theories, where one uses a variable, self-consistent background. Our
proposal is a bona fide gauge fixing that can easily be implemented on the
lattice and in continuum approaches. The resulting gauge-fixed action
explicitly exhibits the center symmetry of the nonzero temperature theory that
controls the confinement-deconfinement transition. We show that, in that gauge,
the electric susceptibility diverges at a second order transition [{\it e.g.},
in the SU(2) theory], so that the gluon propagator is a clear probe of the
transition. We implement our proposal in the perturbative Curci-Ferrari model,
known for its successful description of various infrared aspects of Yang-Mills
theories, including the confinement-deconfinement transition. Our one-loop
calculation confirms our general expectation for the susceptibility while
providing transition temperatures in excellent agreement with the SU(2) and
SU(3) lattice values. Finally, the Polyakov loops above the transition show a
more moderate rise, in contrast to the results in previous approaches, and our
SU(3) result agrees quite well with lattice results in the range $[0,2T_c]$,
the region which is usually not accessible to standard resummation methods of
the finite temperature perturbative expansion.
