- Jan 12, 2003
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"PARIS, Aug 21 (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac admitted shortcomings in France's prized health system on Thursday as pressure mounted on his government to explain how a killer heatwave claimed an estimated 10,000 lives.
Chirac, who had hoped to cut health spending in an economic austerity drive, made a rare televised address pledging more cash for emergency services as French deaths surged past the toll in other affected countries like Spain and Portugal.
"Everything will be done to remedy the inadequacies that we have seen in our health system," Chirac said after the first meeting of his cabinet following the summer break, breaking his much-criticised silence on the heatwave.
"Our emergency services, so essential, should be better recognised... They will receive the means to respond at any time to these exceptional circumstances," he said.
As temperatures soared past 40 degrees Celsius in the first half of the month, the government initially put the death toll at 3,000. But Hubert Falco, secretary of state for the aged, told reporters on Thursday the government was now using the 10,400 estimate made by a top undertaking firm on Wednesday.
Portugal has said an estimated 1,316 people died from the heat there. Italy said the heatwave pushed up deaths in July and August by roughly 20 percent compared with last year. Spain reported just 100 deaths.
France's health authority chief resigned on Monday amid accusations that authorities were too slow in reacting as France's old people in particular succumbed to dehydration.
Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei gave no reply when asked by journalists after the cabinet meeting whether he too would quit.
An opinion poll by the CSA institute published in daily Le Parisien showed 51 percent thought Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin had not been up to dealing with the crisis.
Chirac's problems do not stop there. Data on Wednesday showed the French economy in the second quarter shrank its fastest for nearly eight years. Trade unions are preparing new protests against his plans to trim state spending.
Before the heatwave, the government had been looking to make savings on health spending as it was pressed by its European Union peers to do more to reduce its bulging budget deficit, which bust EU limits last year.
Chirac's silence during his holiday in Canada has been attacked by critics and supporters alike, with even the conservative Le Figaro newspaper chiding him on Thursday.
It asked why he had failed to comment on the crisis facing French hospitals while issuing other statements commiserating the death of French actress Marie Trintignant and condemning the attack on the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters.
"True, the Chiracs were a long way away. In Canada, it was raining," it said. (Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry and Sophie Louet in Paris, Ian Simpson in Lisbon, Shasta Darlington in Rome and Emma Ross-Thomas in Madrid)
) that you are a apologist yourself, for the Bush administration. When you're not bashing the French, Chirac or both; you tend to defend Bush or change the subject. 
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