Jacques Chirac Has Overcome His Illness

French President Jacques Chirac left the hospital on Friday, after he had spent there a week in treatment for a blood vessel problem that affected his vision.

Doctors have advised him not travel by air for the next six weeks, according to a Defense Ministry statement.

The 72 year-old Chirac looked well as he walked unaided out of the Val de Grace military hospital in Paris, accompanied by his wife Bernadette.

"I feel very well, and I was starting to feel desperate to leave," Chirac confessed in a first post-hospitalization statement for the reporters. "Time was starting to drag, especially at lunch time. I am very happy now to go and eat."

His public appearance should put an end to all extensive speculation that he suffered a more serious health problem.

But it will not be easy at all for him to recover from the political damage that his hospitalization has triggered, as his illness followed a string of political setbacks that have secluded him and spoiled any hopes on whether he may still add a third term in the presidential election in 2007.