French president Nicolas Sarkozy tried to dispel worries about his health today in his first official appearance since being taken to hospital after collapsing while jogging.
"I wanted to say to the French people that my health is good," he said outside the Elysee presidential palace in Paris following a Cabinet meeting. “I was really tired.”
The 54-year-old collapsed while running in on Sunday on the grounds of the Chateau de Versailles. He was taken to hospital where he underwent nearly 24 hours of observation and tests. The results were normal, his office has said.
Mr Sarkozy was released from the hospital on Monday, but engagements until today were cancelled to allow him to rest.
Today’s cabinet meeting marked the final event on Mr Sarkozy’s schedule before the start of the government’s three-week-long summer holiday. French media have said Mr Sarkozy and his wife, ex-supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, will spend their holidays at her family’s compound on the Mediterranean.
Mr Sarkozy’s collapse sparked worries that his s frenetic activity is taking a toll on his health. Mr Sarkozy, a teetotaller, has made seemingly constant activity - foreign trips, domestic meetings and his very public exercise sessions - a hallmark of his presidency.
However today he ruled out cutting down his schedule, saying his role required him to keep busy.
Sunday’s episode touched a sensitive nerve in France, where the health of the country’s leaders has long been shrouded in secrecy - so much so that the public did not even learn of former president Georges Pompidou’s bone marrow cancer until after he died of it, while in office, in 1974.