French PM Barnier undergoes operation on cervical lesion

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PARIS (Reuters) -French Prime Minister Michel Barnier underwent surgery on a cervical lesion over the weekend, his doctor said in a statement shared by Barnier’s office on Monday.

The operation went well and Barnier, 73, resumed work on Monday, the statement said. Results from an analysis of the lesion will be known in several weeks.

A lesion is an area of an organ or tissue that has been damaged through injury or disease, such as a wound, ulcer, abscess or tumour. A spokesperson for Barnier’s office declined to comment when asked if there was any suspicion of cancer, citing medical confidentiality.

Barnier is the oldest person to hold the position of prime minister since the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

After weeks of struggling to find a new prime minister following a summer snap election that resulted in a deeply fragmented parliament, President Emmanuel Macron named conservative veteran Barnier to the post in early September.

Barnier’s first and most pressing task has been to secure parliament’s approval for a budget for 2025, with France’s public finances in a dismal state.

Senior French politicians are not legally required to disclose their health conditions publicly.

In April 1974, then President Georges Pompidou died of a rare form of cancer called Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia. His death was a shock to the public, who had been told he was suffering from recurrent bouts of flu.

Another former president, Francois Mitterrand, hid his cancer diagnosis from the public for more than a decade, until after an operation in 1992.

Since then, French leaders have often promised to be transparent about their health and disclose medical checkups, but this has been on a voluntary basis.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon and Michel Rose; editing by Richard Lough, William Maclean and Timothy Heritage)