Chirac Hospitalized for Vascular problem

PARIS -- Jacques Chirac's hospitalization for a vascular problem in his eye has been described as minor, but it appears to have galvanized possible successors and caused a media uproar about the naked ambitions of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.\nThe 72-year-old president, who has clocked more than four decades in politics, seems less likely to run for re-election in 2007.\nChirac, primed on the notions of grandeur dear to his mentor Charles de Gaulle, has always left open the possibility of seeking a third term, a way to gain leverage over rivals.\nBut the president has been weakened in recent years by a series of political setbacks, most recently the "no" victory in France's May 29 referendum on the European constitution. The president had staked his political honor on passage. Now, he is as politically vulnerable as he has ever been.\nThat Chirac was hospitalized just as his party was holding its annual summer meeting added to the symbolism and gave new weight to internal rivalries. The jockeying was highlighted by a public show of differences between Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, Chirac's protege, and Sarkozy, the government's pugnacious No. 2 who has openly eyed the presidency for several years.\nChirac's health "makes his political future more difficult," said Pascal Perrineau, a political analyst with the Center for the Study of French Political Life. "It reminds people he is in his seventies and makes it highly improbable that he will run for president again. ... This accelerates the campaign."\nChirac was hospitalized Friday night at Val de Grace military hospital for what doctors said was a "small vascular accident" that troubled his vision in one eye. A medical update Monday said he showed "very favorable" progress with his condition receding. He is expected to be released after a week's stay. No update was planned for Tuesday because "everything is going as expected," said Dr. Anne Robert, chief doctor of the Army health service.\nThe French press has been extremely critical of what it said was the slow trickle of news on the state of Chirac's health.\nThe head of the French Council of the Order of Doctors said in an interview to be published in Wednesday's La Croix, a Roman Catholic daily, that doctors did not write Chirac's health updates.\n"These statements, presented as medical, are in fact texts devised by the patient, those close to him, his aides," Jacques Roland was quoted as saying. He said they are read by doctors, thus making them "authentic."\nRoland did not provide the source of his information, noting that French doctors are sworn to medical secrecy.\nDoctors not treating the French president said the cause of a problem like Chirac's could range from a ruptured blood vessel to a stroke, which is often connected to vision trouble.\nFrench presidents have traditionally been secretive about their health. The late President Francois Mitterrand for years hid from the nation the prostate cancer that killed him in 1996.\n"In France, we practice a cult of secrecy which would have made the Kremlin proud in the former Soviet Union," Le Monde newspaper wrote in a Tuesday editorial.\nThe presidential Elysee Palace worked this week to counter negative fallout, making efforts to show an active Chirac at work despite his illness.\nTuesday, the president held a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to discuss issues of the day, including Turkish membership in the European Union, according to spokesman Jerome Bonnafont. The phone call replaced a scheduled lunch in Germany.\nHowever, Chirac cannot use the phone to replace a series of foreign trips scheduled through the end of the year -- a period he had announced in August would be "very, very, very active." And he cannot -- for the first time since 1995 -- preside over Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, to be held, exceptionally, at the office of the prime minister.