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Barnier has since resumed work and plans to make his next public appearance on Thursday, according to the statement. The 73-year-old is the oldest prime minister in the history of France’s fifth republic.
Barnier’s office did not specify why he needed to undergo an operation.
High-ranking politicians in France are not required to make health conditions public, and some leaders have declined to disclose major illnesses while in office. George Pompidou died five years into his term in 1974 from a rare blood cancer he had not disclosed, while François Mitterand announced in 1992 that he was suffering from prostate cancer — which he had been diagnosed with more than a decade before.
This story has been updated