Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe was in a stable condition but remained in intensive care today after a man described as a deranged homophobe stabbed him during an all-night public party at his City Hall at the weekend.
Mr Delanoe, a Socialist homosexual elected last year, suffered abdominal injuries from the attack early yesterday. But he insisted the French capital's festival must go on even as he was rushed bleeding to hospital.
In a statement, Mr Delanoe's doctors said his condition was stable and "very satisfactory" but added he would require a further eight days in hospital and several weeks of recovery from wounds to his stomach and intestinal tract.
Party allies acknowledged the wounds had been more serious than originally let on either by Mr Delanoe (52) or his aides.
"His life is not in danger, it never was, but the attack was brutal and the blade was long," Socialist Party General Secretary Francois Hollande told French radio.
His attacker, a 39-year old French Muslim named Mr Azzedine Berkane with a record of theft and drugs-related offences, was arrested immediately and was due to go before a judge later today as a first step to being charged for the assault.
Mr Berkane, a loner who lived with his parents in a Paris suburb, told police he felt victimised by politicians and "explained his strong religious views made him reject homosexuality as unnatural".
Mr Delanoe, the capital's first left-wing mayor since the 1871 Paris Commune, is now one of the leading figures in the Socialist Party after former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin suffered a crushing defeat in the presidential election earlier this year.
Although he disclosed his homosexuality years ago and marches in the city's annual Gay Pride, he has not made an issue of his sexuality and it rarely merits a mention in France.
The attack followed an incident at the Bastille Day parade on July 14 when a neo-Nazi fired a shot near President Jacques Chirac. Earlier this year, a deranged man gunned down eight local councillors in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre.