Mitterrand: 'I don't have much time': President's interview with 'Le Figaro' fuels speculation that illness will force him to step down, provoking an early election

PRESIDENT Francois Mitterrand, recovering from his second operation for prostate cancer in two years, said in an interview published yesterday that he hoped to serve his full term, which ends next May. But in his comments to the editor of Le Figaro he sounded like a man contemplating at least the possibility of an early death. Speculation in Paris is not so much that Mr Mitterrand's life is in immediate danger but that, with so little of his term left, he might stand down and provoke an early presidential election rather than allow the media to search for signs of physical weakness.

In the Le Figaro interview, Mr Mitterrand, 77, discussed death and religion. He returned repeatedly to the theme that time would not permit him to do all he wanted. 'I am something of an agnostic. That's not because I haven't sought (faith) but I don't know what I believe. Transcendency is a subject which is important to me. I can't decide. It's time.' Mr Mitterrand said he did not want to write his memoirs. 'I should like to have the time to write five or six books on the main moments of my political life. But that takes time, a book, and I don't have much left.'

As behind-the-scenes speculation about his health grew, Mr Mitterrand told the conservative daily that he hoped his illness would be 'obliging enough to let me finish my mandate. I believe it will. Perhaps I am mistaken.'

The published text of the interview, given to Franz-Olivier Giesbert, the newspaper's editor, last Saturday, noted that Mr Mitterrand laughed as he made this remark. While staff at the Elysee Palace have referred to a 'shock treatment' that Mr Mitterrand has undergone since his last operation on 18 July, other sources have said this is a course of chemotherapy.

Some sources said earlier this week that Mr Mitterrand was reacting very badly to chemotherapy. Since he was first elected in May 1981, Mr Mitterrand has published twice-yearly health bulletins and promised to leave office if he felt unable to assume his duties. He underwent a first operation for cancer of the prostate in September 1992. Yesterday, Mr Mitterrand flew to Berlin to attend ceremonies marking the withdrawal of Allied troops from the city. Confusion about his plans served to fuel the uncertainty.

A German government spokesman told Reuters news agency that Mr Mitterrand had cancelled his appearance at two outdoor military events. The Elysee Palace in Paris responded almost immediately by issuing a statement saying that the President had never intended to attend those two events.

French sources said Edouard Balladur, the Gaullist Prime Minister, had been scheduled to travel to Berlin but Mr Mitterrand had decided to replace him to cut short talk that he was in bad health. France is sensitive to the health of its presidents. In 1974, Georges Pompidou died in office of leukaemia after months in which, despite his poor physical appearance, his illness was kept secret.

In the event that Mr Mitterrand did step down, the constitutional procedure would be clear cut. Rene Monory, the centrist president of the Senate, would take over as interim head of state until a presidential election could be called. In 1974, the whole process took just under six weeks until Valery Giscard d'Estaing was elected.

Mr Giesbert, Le Figaro's editor, said the interview, of which a second part devoted to foreign affairs is due to appear today, was conducted at Mr Mitterrand's house at Latche in the Landes in south- west France. The conversations took some four hours and included two 45-minute walks during which he found Mr Mitterrand to be 'in good form' and dismissive of talk about his health.

Mr Giesbert, answering questions on the Europe 1 radio station, did not describe Mr Mitterrand's physical appearance in detail, however. Photographs accompanying the interview showed the President in a tweed cap and with a cane in his left hand. Mr Giesbert said Mr Mitterrand only showed the signs of an elderly man recovering from an operation.

Asked how he felt about death, Mr Mitterrand replied: 'This prospect is so inscribed in life that it would be a little pathetic to bow down before its advent. I know I shall no longer exist in a few months or a few years. It is not the fact of dying which causes me great care, but of no longer living.' He said he was currently interested in St Paul. 'I am fascinated by his life and his work. He is one of the most wonderful personalities in history. I have reconstituted all his travels, especially in Asia Minor, and I'd like to follow them myself, if I had the time.'

Aside from the health issue, Mr Mitterrand's political record as a young man has become an issue among his own supporters. The leadership of the Socialist Party became embroiled in a dispute on Wednesday over recent revelations that the President had not only had an equivocal relationship with the Vichy regime of Marshal Philippe Petain during the Second World War but had taken part in pre-war right-wing protests.

A new book published last week recounted Mr Mitterrand's career between 1934 and 1947. On its cover, it carried a photograph of a meeting between Mr Mitterrand and Petain in October 1942. Pierre Pean the author, said Mr Mitterrand had given him much of the material for the book himself. Mr Mitterrand, who received a Vichy decoration, ended the war in charge of a Resistance network.

In a furious meeting of the Socialist Party's National Bureau, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was Industry Minister in the last Socialist government which was voted out of office last year, took particular issue with reports that Mr Mitterrand had remained friendly with Rene Bousquet, the Vichy police chief responsible for the notorious Vel d'Hiv round-up of Jews in Paris on 16 July 1942, until as late as 1986. Bousquet, who had been charged with crimes against humanity, was assassinated at his Paris home in June of last year.

In his interview with Le Figaro, Mr Mitterrand pointed out that Charles de Gaulle himself had appointed him one of the 15 men to run France immediately after the liberation. De Gaulle in his memoirs 'mentioned my name as one of those who, at great risk to themselves, ensured the link between England and France, by plane or boat and at night'.

(Photograph omitted)