FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac admitted shortcomings in France's prized health system yesterday as pressure mounted on his government to explain how a killer heatwave claimed an estimated 10,000 lives.
Mr 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 such as Spain and Portugal.
"Everything will be done to remedy the inadequacies that we have seen in our health system," Mr 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 in the first half of the month, the government initially put the death toll at 3,000.
But Mr Hubert Falco, secretary of state for the aged, told reporters yesterday that the government was now using the 10,400 estimate made by a top undertaking firm on Wednesday.
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.
Mr Jean-Francois Mattei, the health minister, 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 per cent thought Prime Minister Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin had not been up to dealing with the crisis.
Mr 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 partners to do more to reduce its bulging budget deficit, which exceeded EU limits last year.
Mr Chirac's silence during his holiday in Canada has been attacked by critics and supporters alike, with even the conservative Le Figaro newspaper criticising him on yesterday.