French president’s son ‘hospitalised in Ukraine’

ODESSA, Jan 25 – The eldest son of French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been hospitalised with apparent food poisoning in the Ukrainian city of Odessa, where he was visited by the local mayor, officials said on Wednesday.

“He is feeling okay, his life is not in danger,” Odessa City Hall spokeswoman Anna Ossipenko said of Pierre Sarkozy, a 26-year-old hip-hop producer also known as DJ Mosey.

Local media said Sarkozy had been scheduled to perform in a night club in the southern resort city on Tuesday, but was hospitalised with a sudden illness under tight security.

“It looks like food poisoning,” a Ukrainian security source told AFP, confirming the reports on condition of anonymity.

The mayor visited Sarkozy in the hospital and the two discussed “the role of the French in the history of Odessa,” said Ossipenko.

The website Dumskaya.net said that a team of French doctors had flown to the Black Sea port to help the French leader’s son, while a source in Odessa city government said he is to be transported back to France on Wednesday.

An AFP photographer reported seeing a white Mercedes arriving at the airport with a police motorcade.

The French embassy in Ukraine declined to comment when contacted by AFP, saying the president’s son was in Odessa on a “private visit”.

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