(3 Sep 2005) SHOTLIST
APTN
Paris - 3 September 2005
1. Wide pan of Val-de-Grace Hospital buildings to hospital entrance, police standing by
2. Plaques of hospital departments
3. Various of anti-riot police buses entering hospital grounds to set up security cordon
APTN
Paris - 1 September 2005
4. Various of meeting between French President Jacques Chirac and US Middle East envoy James Wolfensohn at the Elysee Palace
5. Chirac and Wolfensohn coming out of Elysee Palace, shaking hands
APTN
Paris - 1 September 2005
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin:
"I''ve just saw the president for an hour. I found him in good form. The doctors have advised him to stay in the Val de Grace hospital for a few days. One thing I can tell you is that he can''t wait to get out. Thank you."
7. De Villepin getting into car and driving away.
STORYLINE
President Jacques Chirac has been hospitalised for several days after sustaining a blood vessel problem in his eye, but is already eager to leave, the French prime minister said on Saturday.
Chirac, 72, was alert and consulting with advisers after being taken to a Paris military hospital on Friday evening.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, after visiting Chirac for about an hour at the walled Val-de-Grace hospital, on Saturday said he had found the president in "good form".
"He can''t wait to get out," he said in a brief statement to reporters, adding that doctors had urged Chirac to remain in hospital for several days.
While supporters played down the severity of the situation, the surprise hospitalisation was likely to trigger questions about future changes in the
French political landscape that Chirac has dominated for a decade.
Doctors said such a problem could range from a ruptured blood vessel to a stroke, which is often connected to vision trouble.
More than 80 percent of strokes are caused by blockage in an artery carrying blood to the brain.
Chirac''s schedule for the week had included a summit on Tuesday with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Germany and a lunch meeting on Friday with Prince Albert II of Monaco.
The prime minister will head a French cabinet meeting on Wednesday in place of Chirac, the presidential Elysee Palace said.
The hospitalisation comes as recent polls have shown Chirac''s popularity hovering near an all-time low for his presidency, after voters rejected the EU constitution that he had supported in a May referendum.
France has also been seeking to rebuild ties with the United States, which frayed after Chirac led international opposition to the US-led war in Iraq.
Chirac has been private about his health.
After taking office in 1995 succeeding President Francois Mitterrand - who kept his cancer secret for years - Chirac said that he would not speak publicly about his health.
He reportedly once gave a dressing-down to a former minister who had publicly hinted that he wore a hearing aid.
While president, Chirac has sought to portray himself as dynamic and energised - in short, youthful.
He has virtually no gray hair, set aside his glasses years ago for contact lenses and often appears tanned in public appearances.
Aides say he watches his waistline.
Elysee officials said they believed that Chirac - a former heavy smoker who is not known to exercise regularly - had not missed a day of work due to
ill health since taking office in 1995.
In his only other publicly known health problem, Chirac was treated for a broken pelvis suffered in a 1979 car accident, while he was mayor of Paris.
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