Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's health "has not deteriorated" and "is considered stable", announced late Friday afternoon General Christian Estripeau, spokesman for French Defense forces' medical service outside the Percy military hospital in the southwest Paris suburb of Clamart.

"Yasser Arafat's condition has not deteriorated and is considered stable since the last health update" given 24 hours earlier on Thursday, Estripeau, spokesman of the Percy military hospital treating Arafat, said in a statement. He refused to answer any questions raised by journalists.

The same spokesman announced Thursday that the Palestinian leader is still alive after some French and Israeli reports said Arafat was dead.

Later on Thursday a French medical source quoted by AFP agency and other French media said that Arafat was prolonged in "very deep coma of stage IV" thanks to life support machines and such artificial care can be "extended for several days or several weeks thanks to the machines."

Early on Friday, Arafat's spokeswoman in Paris, Leila Shahid, denied that the Palestinian leader was brain dead and said he was "in a reversible coma" from which "he could wake up".

The first and only official medical report said Arafat does not have leukemia or cancer, but did not specify the cause of his "blood disorder".

French President Jacques Chirac said Friday morning in Brussels, where he attended a European Union (EU) summit, that Arafat is "under excellent medical treatment," but he refused to comment on Arafat's condition or the Mideast condition.

(Xinhua News Agency November 6, 2004)