French President Jacques Chirac left a Paris hospital on Friday after a week’s treatment for a blood vessel problem that affected his vision.
Chirac, 72, cancelled appointments for a week after he was taken to the Val de Grace military hospital on Sept. 2 following what officials described as a “vascular accident” affecting his vision and a migraine.
Chirac was to address the media in a clear effort to put to rest unanswered questions about his health that were fueled by incomplete medical statements from the hospital.
Chirac is scheduled to attend a United Nations summit in New York next week. Officials have not said whether he plans to go ahead with the trip.
“He will announce his schedule very soon,” Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told Europe 1 radio earlier on Friday, dismissing the president’s health problem as minor.
Doctors said on Monday Chirac had suffered a hematoma, which is a localized collection of blood, usually clotted, due to a break in the wall of a blood vessel.
Details of Chirac’s specific condition have remained vague, causing opposition politicians to denounce the air of secrecy surrounding presidential illnesses.
Chirac’s hospital stay is another blow for the president, who suffered a damaging defeat when French voters rejected the European Union’s constitution in a referendum in May.
His health problem has also intensified a succession struggle pitting Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a Chirac loyalist, against Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and head of the governing center-right Union for a Popular Movement party.
Chirac has not said whether he will stand again in the 2007 presidential election. His popularity ratings are low and critics say he now has even less chance of seeking a third term after his first major health problem in 10 years as president.
