France's Prime Minister Michel Barnier looks on as he waits for entering the set of the political TV show "L'Evenement" (The Event) broadcast on French TV channel France 2, in Aubervilliers, on the northern outskirts of Paris, on October 3, 2024. (Photo by Thomas Samson / AFP)
Paris: France's Prime Minister Michel Barnier was "operated on for a cervical lesion" at the weekend, his office said on Monday.
"Results of the analysis will be known in a few weeks," Barnier's office said in a statement signed by the prime minister's doctor Olivier Hersan.
Hersan added that the operation "went very well" and that the 73-year-old premier had already returned to work.
Barnier spoke to both government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon and Minister for Parliamentary Relations Nathalie Delattre on Monday.
The prime minister "will resume public activities at the cabinet meeting on Thursday, October 31", the statement read.
Barnier's public agenda for the week also calls for him to meet senior lawmakers and ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday at his Hotel de Matignon office in Paris.
But it does not include routine government question sessions at the National Assembly (lower house) and Senate on those days.
Barnier's office declined to give any further details of the condition that may have caused the lesion when contacted by AFP.
Neither did it specify in which hospital he was operated on or exactly what procedure he underwent.
Barnier's operation is the first for a serving head of French government in 40 years, since Socialist premier Pierre Mauroy was admitted to hospital for a lung condition in 1984.
Presidents Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy were also treated in hospital during their terms in office.
President Georges Pompidou died in office in 1974 after concealing a rare blood cancer from the public.
