‘He is in good shape’ French PM said after visiting Chirac in hospital

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin went to visit President Jacques Chirac at the Val de Grace military hospital. French President Jacques Chirac is in "good shape," said the Prime Minister.

Villepin told journalists outside the Val de Grace military hospital that Chirac was in a hurry to leave but that doctors had advised the 72-year-old French leader to stay there for "several days," reports Maldivesinfo.

According to Independent, the 72-year-old French President cancelled his appointments for a week after slipping discreetly into the hospital in Paris late on Friday following what his aides described as a "vascular accident" affecting his eyes.

"The President had a good night. His general condition and his tests are very satisfactory," the Val de Grace military hospital said in a statement, without giving further details.

It said M. Chirac would stay in the army teaching hospital, where French leaders are traditionally treated, for several days.

Mr Chirac, in office since 1995, has been distinctly coy about whether he will run for a third term, partly in a bid to stymie Mr Sarkozy's Frances Interior Minister chances.

More recently, however, his ambitions for the presidency appear to have shifted to Dominique de Villepin, his new prime minister.

Mr de Villepin's second set of reforms in three months, aimed at overhauling the country's costly social model and its burdensome tax regime, was widely thought to have stolen some of Mr Sarkozy's political thunder.

On Sunday he said he also intended to announce a programme of state reforms in the coming weeks.

He implicitly hit back at Mr Sarkozy, by warning against making promises in the run-up to the presidential election "which by definition will not be kept," informs Financial Times.