CLAMART, Nov 4: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was on Thursday "brain dead" and breathing only through artificial life support systems , a French medical source said after conflicting reports as to whether he was alive or dead.

In strictly technical terms, Arafat was "not dead," the source told AFP, adding that the 75-year-old leader had slipped into an irreversible coma and could only be maintained in his vegetative state through ventilation machines.

The information followed a short statement by a senior French military official who said: "Mr Arafat is not dead".

The Palestinian Authority president's condition was "complex," General Christian Estripeau, the spokesman for the French defence forces' medical service, told reporters outside the Paris military hospital which had been tending to Arafat.

"The patient's condition needs appropriate treatment which required his being transferred to a unit suited to his pathology on the afternoon of Wednesday Nov 3," he said. He refused to take questions, but said his statement had been prepared according to the wishes of Arafat's wife, Suha.

Earlier on Thursday, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and Israeli media had reported that Arafat had died.

"Mr Arafat passed away a quarter of an hour ago," Juncker told reporters in Brussels at 1640 GMT (0940pm PST). His aides later retracted the statement.

French President Jacques Chirac, who made an half-hour visit to the Percy Military Training Hospital where Arafat had been admitted before going to Brussels for an meeting with Juncker and other EU leaders, refused to answer journalists' questions as to whether Arafat was dead.

Palestinian officials in Paris and the West Bank spent the day denying the reports of Arafat's demise, but said their leader was in a "critical condition" in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei told reporters at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah that Arafat "is not in a coma".

"There have been examinations and results are positive," he said without elaborating.

"It is wrong. If the president was dead, the whole world would know," Palestinian communications minister Azzam al-Ahmed told AFP. "But it is true that he is a very critical condition."

French medical sources said Arafat's health had suddenly and dramatically deteriorated on Wednesday while he was undergoing tests to determine the cause of an illness which prompted his medical evacuation to Paris last Friday.-Agencies