Chaques Chirac Hospitalized

Media and politicians start Chirac obituaries
By Craig S. Smith The New York Times

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2005

PARIS President Jacques Chirac is in the hospital recovering from what doctors describe as a minor condition affecting his sight, but the French are already writing his political epitaph.

Though he has two years left in his current term and has left open the possibility that he might run again, the news media, political opponents and even his most loyal allies are acting as if he is already gone.

"Strictly speaking, nothing has happened," read an editorial in the conservative daily Le Figaro. "But everyone feels somehow that something has tipped over."

The president, 72, was rushed to the hospital late Saturday after suffering a severe headache and blurred vision. Though his office played down the seriousness of the incident, he is expected to remain in the hospital all week.

His absence has not alarmed the French people, for many of whom Chirac has been a has-been since he suffered a resounding defeat in his campaign to ratify Europe's draft constitution in a national referendum in May.

It has, however, excited the media, which have filled the nation's newspapers with pitiless analysis of Chirac's political impotence and speculation of what lies beyond his presidency.

"Now people say he's not only unpopular but he's aging, he's irrelevant," said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Study Center of French Political Life. "It reinforces all of the questions in France about Chirac's leadership."

The business daily Les Echos said a third term for the president, already questioned before he entered the hospital, "became even more improbable this weekend."

The hospitalization came as Chirac's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, met in the Atlantic resort of La Baule for its annual end-of-summer convention.

The two leading contenders for Chirac's job, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, leaped into the breach, competing for air time and newspaper ink in an effort to appear presidential.

Villepin, Chirac's protégé, cast himself as a man of "change in continuity," while Sarkozy, Chirac's nemesis, called for a "rupture with the past." The leftist daily Libération ran a front page cartoon of the two men as vultures on the railing of Chirac's sickbed.

The event has been particularly invigorating for Villepin, a former foreign and interior minister who has never run for elected office. He had been constrained from openly campaigning for the presidency by Chirac's own ambiguity about whether he would run for a third term.

That had left the field open for the nakedly ambitious Sarkozy. But no longer. With cameras rolling Sunday, Villepin went for a run on the beach and swam in the chilly Atlantic while Sarkozy watched from a terrace.

"Until Saturday evening, Dominique de Villepin had the status of prime minister," said a commentator on a French television station, LCI. "Since Sunday morning, he is in the role of heir."

Villepin's popularity has grown since he took the job of prime minister in a government shakeup that followed the rejection of the European constitution.

He will preside in Chirac's place over the Ministers Council on Wednesday, the first time Chirac will have missed the meeting in his ten years as president.

Sarkozy, whom Le Monde regularly depicts on its front page as a famous French cartoon character whose comic ambition to become "Caliph in the place of the Caliph," has worked aggressively to position himself as the party's presidential candidate in 2007.

Chirac forced Sarkozy out of the government last year, when Sarkozy took over leadership of the party, but asked him back to help rescue the government during the crisis touched off by failure of the constitutional referendum.

Chirac was deeply wounded by the referendum, which was largely seen as a plebiscite on his administration. His popularity has subsequently fallen below that of any recent French president: 26 percent, according to a recent poll.

He has long preferred to leave the running of the country to the prime minister and his cabinet, focusing instead on foreign policy. But even in that arena Chirac has been relatively inactive after limping home from a disastrous EU summit meeting in June.

He had been scheduled to meet Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Rheinsberg, Germany, on Tuesday, and was to have met Prince Albert II of Monaco in Paris on Friday to mark the prince's first official visit to France.

Chirac's hospital stay is the first major health incident of his career and although he is known for robust health, he has never released his medical records despite past promises to do so. The French media have traditionally avoided writing about the personal lives of its politicians, including their health.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Monday that Chirac was "very well" and insisted that the government was hiding nothing about the president's condition.

But government coverups of presidential ailments in the past have made the public wary of official reassurances. President François Mitterand suffered for years from prostate and bone cancer without revealing it to the public despite releasing regular reports about his health.

Before him, President Georges Pompidou hid his battle with cancer and died while in office in 1974.

Under the French Constitution, if Chirac were to die in office, Christian Poncelet, president of the Senate, would take his place until presidential elections could be held.


PARIS President Jacques Chirac is in the hospital recovering from what doctors describe as a minor condition affecting his sight, but the French are already writing his political epitaph.

Though he has two years left in his current term and has left open the possibility that he might run again, the news media, political opponents and even his most loyal allies are acting as if he is already gone.

"Strictly speaking, nothing has happened," read an editorial in the conservative daily Le Figaro. "But everyone feels somehow that something has tipped over."

The president, 72, was rushed to the hospital late Saturday after suffering a severe headache and blurred vision. Though his office played down the seriousness of the incident, he is expected to remain in the hospital all week.

His absence has not alarmed the French people, for many of whom Chirac has been a has-been since he suffered a resounding defeat in his campaign to ratify Europe's draft constitution in a national referendum in May.

It has, however, excited the media, which have filled the nation's newspapers with pitiless analysis of Chirac's political impotence and speculation of what lies beyond his presidency.

"Now people say he's not only unpopular but he's aging, he's irrelevant," said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Study Center of French Political Life. "It reinforces all of the questions in France about Chirac's leadership."

The business daily Les Echos said a third term for the president, already questioned before he entered the hospital, "became even more improbable this weekend."

The hospitalization came as Chirac's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, met in the Atlantic resort of La Baule for its annual end-of-summer convention.

The two leading contenders for Chirac's job, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, leaped into the breach, competing for air time and newspaper ink in an effort to appear presidential.

Villepin, Chirac's protégé, cast himself as a man of "change in continuity," while Sarkozy, Chirac's nemesis, called for a "rupture with the past." The leftist daily Libération ran a front page cartoon of the two men as vultures on the railing of Chirac's sickbed.

The event has been particularly invigorating for Villepin, a former foreign and interior minister who has never run for elected office. He had been constrained from openly campaigning for the presidency by Chirac's own ambiguity about whether he would run for a third term.

That had left the field open for the nakedly ambitious Sarkozy. But no longer. With cameras rolling Sunday, Villepin went for a run on the beach and swam in the chilly Atlantic while Sarkozy watched from a terrace.

"Until Saturday evening, Dominique de Villepin had the status of prime minister," said a commentator on a French television station, LCI. "Since Sunday morning, he is in the role of heir."

Villepin's popularity has grown since he took the job of prime minister in a government shakeup that followed the rejection of the European constitution.

He will preside in Chirac's place over the Ministers Council on Wednesday, the first time Chirac will have missed the meeting in his ten years as president.

Sarkozy, whom Le Monde regularly depicts on its front page as a famous French cartoon character whose comic ambition to become "Caliph in the place of the Caliph," has worked aggressively to position himself as the party's presidential candidate in 2007.

Chirac forced Sarkozy out of the government last year, when Sarkozy took over leadership of the party, but asked him back to help rescue the government during the crisis touched off by failure of the constitutional referendum.

Chirac was deeply wounded by the referendum, which was largely seen as a plebiscite on his administration. His popularity has subsequently fallen below that of any recent French president: 26 percent, according to a recent poll.

He has long preferred to leave the running of the country to the prime minister and his cabinet, focusing instead on foreign policy. But even in that arena Chirac has been relatively inactive after limping home from a disastrous EU summit meeting in June.

He had been scheduled to meet Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Rheinsberg, Germany, on Tuesday, and was to have met Prince Albert II of Monaco in Paris on Friday to mark the prince's first official visit to France.

Chirac's hospital stay is the first major health incident of his career and although he is known for robust health, he has never released his medical records despite past promises to do so. The French media have traditionally avoided writing about the personal lives of its politicians, including their health.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Monday that Chirac was "very well" and insisted that the government was hiding nothing about the president's condition.

But government coverups of presidential ailments in the past have made the public wary of official reassurances. President François Mitterand suffered for years from prostate and bone cancer without revealing it to the public despite releasing regular reports about his health.

Before him, President Georges Pompidou hid his battle with cancer and died while in office in 1974.

Under the French Constitution, if Chirac were to die in office, Christian Poncelet, president of the Senate, would take his place until presidential elections could be held.


PARIS President Jacques Chirac is in the hospital recovering from what doctors describe as a minor condition affecting his sight, but the French are already writing his political epitaph.

Though he has two years left in his current term and has left open the possibility that he might run again, the news media, political opponents and even his most loyal allies are acting as if he is already gone.

"Strictly speaking, nothing has happened," read an editorial in the conservative daily Le Figaro. "But everyone feels somehow that something has tipped over."

The president, 72, was rushed to the hospital late Saturday after suffering a severe headache and blurred vision. Though his office played down the seriousness of the incident, he is expected to remain in the hospital all week.

His absence has not alarmed the French people, for many of whom Chirac has been a has-been since he suffered a resounding defeat in his campaign to ratify Europe's draft constitution in a national referendum in May.

It has, however, excited the media, which have filled the nation's newspapers with pitiless analysis of Chirac's political impotence and speculation of what lies beyond his presidency.

"Now people say he's not only unpopular but he's aging, he's irrelevant," said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Study Center of French Political Life. "It reinforces all of the questions in France about Chirac's leadership."

The business daily Les Echos said a third term for the president, already questioned before he entered the hospital, "became even more improbable this weekend."

The hospitalization came as Chirac's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, met in the Atlantic resort of La Baule for its annual end-of-summer convention.

The two leading contenders for Chirac's job, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, leaped into the breach, competing for air time and newspaper ink in an effort to appear presidential.

Villepin, Chirac's protégé, cast himself as a man of "change in continuity," while Sarkozy, Chirac's nemesis, called for a "rupture with the past." The leftist daily Libération ran a front page cartoon of the two men as vultures on the railing of Chirac's sickbed.

The event has been particularly invigorating for Villepin, a former foreign and interior minister who has never run for elected office. He had been constrained from openly campaigning for the presidency by Chirac's own ambiguity about whether he would run for a third term.

That had left the field open for the nakedly ambitious Sarkozy. But no longer. With cameras rolling Sunday, Villepin went for a run on the beach and swam in the chilly Atlantic while Sarkozy watched from a terrace.

"Until Saturday evening, Dominique de Villepin had the status of prime minister," said a commentator on a French television station, LCI. "Since Sunday morning, he is in the role of heir."

Villepin's popularity has grown since he took the job of prime minister in a government shakeup that followed the rejection of the European constitution.

He will preside in Chirac's place over the Ministers Council on Wednesday, the first time Chirac will have missed the meeting in his ten years as president.

Sarkozy, whom Le Monde regularly depicts on its front page as a famous French cartoon character whose comic ambition to become "Caliph in the place of the Caliph," has worked aggressively to position himself as the party's presidential candidate in 2007.

Chirac forced Sarkozy out of the government last year, when Sarkozy took over leadership of the party, but asked him back to help rescue the government during the crisis touched off by failure of the constitutional referendum.

Chirac was deeply wounded by the referendum, which was largely seen as a plebiscite on his administration. His popularity has subsequently fallen below that of any recent French president: 26 percent, according to a recent poll.

He has long preferred to leave the running of the country to the prime minister and his cabinet, focusing instead on foreign policy. But even in that arena Chirac has been relatively inactive after limping home from a disastrous EU summit meeting in June.

He had been scheduled to meet Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in Rheinsberg, Germany, on Tuesday, and was to have met Prince Albert II of Monaco in Paris on Friday to mark the prince's first official visit to France.

Chirac's hospital stay is the first major health incident of his career and although he is known for robust health, he has never released his medical records despite past promises to do so. The French media have traditionally avoided writing about the personal lives of its politicians, including their health.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Monday that Chirac was "very well" and insisted that the government was hiding nothing about the president's condition.

But government coverups of presidential ailments in the past have made the public wary of official reassurances. President François Mitterand suffered for years from prostate and bone cancer without revealing it to the public despite releasing regular reports about his health.

Before him, President Georges Pompidou hid his battle with cancer and died while in office in 1974.

Under the French Constitution, if Chirac were to die in office, Christian Poncelet, president of the Senate, would take his place until presidential elections could be held.


PARIS President Jacques Chirac is in the hospital recovering from what doctors describe as a minor condition affecting his sight, but the French are already writing his political epitaph.

Though he has two years left in his current term and has left open the possibility that he might run again, the news media, political opponents and even his most loyal allies are acting as if he is already gone.

"Strictly speaking, nothing has happened," read an editorial in the conservative daily Le Figaro. "But everyone feels somehow that something has tipped over."

The president, 72, was rushed to the hospital late Saturday after suffering a severe headache and blurred vision. Though his office played down the seriousness of the incident, he is expected to remain in the hospital all week.

His absence has not alarmed the French people, for many of whom Chirac has been a has-been since he suffered a resounding defeat in his campaign to ratify Europe's draft constitution in a national referendum in May.

It has, however, excited the media, which have filled the nation's newspapers with pitiless analysis of Chirac's political impotence and speculation of what lies beyond his presidency.

"Now people say he's not only unpopular but he's aging, he's irrelevant," said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Study Center of French Political Life. "It reinforces all of the questions in France about Chirac's leadership."

The business daily Les Echos said a third term for the president, already questioned before he entered the hospital, "became even more improbable this weekend."

The hospitalization came as Chirac's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, met in the Atlantic resort of La Baule for its annual end-of-summer convention.

The two leading contenders for Chirac's job, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, leaped into the breach, competing for air time and newspaper ink in an effort to appear presidential.

Villepin, Chirac's protégé, cast himself as a man of "change in continuity," while Sarkozy, Chirac's nemesis, called for a "rupture with the past." The leftist daily Libération ran a front page cartoon of the two men as vultures on the railing of Chirac's sickbed.

The event has been particularly invigorating for Villepin, a former foreign and interior minister who has never run for elected office. He had been constrained from openly campaigning for the presidency by Chirac's own ambiguity about whether he would run for a third term.

That had left the field open for the nakedly ambitious Sarkozy. But no longer. With cameras rolling Sunday, Villepin went for a run on the beach and swam in the chilly Atlantic while Sarkozy watched from a terrace.

"Until Saturday evening, Dominique de Villepin had the status of prime minister," said a commentator on a French television station, LCI. "Since Sunday morning, he is in the role of heir."