Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who doctors say may have leukaemia, was conscious and in "good shape" at a French hospital on Friday after leaving the West Bank for the first time in more than 2-1/2 years.
The 75-year-old president, who has for decades embodied the struggle with Israel for a Palestinian state, was rushed to the hospital by helicopter after landing at a military airfield south-west of Paris. He was stretched inside.
"We are very relieved that he was able to travel, that he arrived in good shape and was conscious. I talked to him," said Leila Shahid, the Palestinian Authority's envoy to Paris.
"President Arafat has been suffering from an intestinal flu for at least three weeks, but obviously there is more to it than," she told reporters at the hospital in the south-western Paris suburb of Clamart.
Doctors had already begun examining him but would need "several days before (they) can finish all the examinations and arrive at a real diagnosis," she added.
Arafat's wife Suha was at his side in the sleek and modern Percy Army Teaching Hospital, which has a strong reputation for treating blood disorders including cancer.
A dozen sympathisers gathered outside the hospital but were unable to see him.
Arafat had earlier been taken by helicopter to Jordan from his shell-battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah where he had been effectively confined by Israeli forces for 2-1/2 years.
As he was placed aboard the aircraft, scores of tearful bystanders, bodyguards and officials chanted his nom de guerre: "We will sacrifice our blood and souls for you, Abu Ammar."
"The mountain cannot be shaken by the wind," they called out, repeating one of his favourite sayings.
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