French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Monday that his job is keeping him too busy to think about the 2007 presidential elections, despite speculation that he is being groomed to succeed Jacques Chirac. "The question has not come up," Villepin told RMC-Info radio. "I am entirely focused on my job." Villepin, a longtime ally of Chirac, is widely seen as a contender for the presidency if the 72-year-old leader declines to seek another term. Villepin, France's former foreign minister, will stand in for Chirac at a U.N. summit later this week. Chirac was advised to cancel foreign travel following a weeklong hospital stay for what doctors described as a "small vascular accident" that impaired vision in one eye.
