Habash Leaves Paris After Stirring a Political Furor : Terrorism: The radical guerrilla leader flies to Tunisia. His stay in France embarrassed Mitterrand.

Palestinian guerrilla leader George Habash left France on Saturday after three days of hospitalization in Paris that stirred up a national political furor, forced the resignations of four senior officials and shook the governing Socialist Party to the core.

Habash, 65, under treatment for a heart condition, departed France for Tunis, Tunisia, in an Algerian jet after doctors ruled that his condition was too poor to permit his interrogation by French authorities for terrorist crimes. According to the news agency Agence France-Presse, he was welcomed in Tunis by Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat.

But Habash’s hasty exit is not expected to quell a raging controversy described as the worst political gaffe since 1985, when French intelligence agents blew up the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in a New Zealand harbor, killing one person on board.

French newspaper and television coverage was dominated by the Habash story. “A State Gone Mad,” was the front-page headline of the tabloid newspaper Liberation, which published a cartoon depicting French President Francois Mitterrand driving an ambulance riddled with bullet holes.

“One of the worst weeks in a long time for French diplomacy,” the influential Le Monde newspaper said in a front-page editorial entitled “What a Mess.” Le Monde suggested that the decision by senior French bureaucrats to grant Habash’s request for treatment in France reflected an “atmosphere of pro-Palestinian sympathies” in the French Foreign Ministry.

As a result of their participation in the decision to receive Habash, who heads a hard-line PLO faction called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the two most senior civil servants in the Foreign Ministry, Francois Sheer and Bernard Kessedjian, were asked to resign by Prime Minister Edith Cresson. Also resigning were Christian Viouroux, top civil servant in the Ministry of Interior, and Georgina Dufoix, director of the French Red Cross and adviser to Mitterrand.

And with important regional elections set for March, pressure mounted on President Mitterrand to shake up the government headed by Cresson, France’s first female prime minister whose seven months in office have been marked by extremely low ratings in public opinion polls.

Those whose jobs are believed to be on the line are Cresson, Interior Minister Philippe Marchand and Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, one of Mitterrand’s closest confidants and political allies.

Since winning strong public support during the Persian Gulf War, Mitterrand’s own ratings have also plummeted to new lows. His ruling Socialist Party is given little hope of winning regional elections in March or the important parliamentary elections scheduled next year.

A meeting of Socialist Party leaders in Paris on Saturday was a glum affair. Party secretary Laurent Fabius joined a chorus of politicians from right and left in condemning the Habash decision, calling it “a serious mistake.”

“We are caught in a trap that we need to escape as quickly as possible,” Fabius said.

Habash, a radical PLO member who was educated in medicine at the American University of Beirut, came to Paris late Wednesday night after suffering what PLO officials described as a stroke. The request for his medical evacuation came through the French Red Cross, headed by Dufoix, and was approved by both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Interior Ministry as a “humanitarian” gesture.

Cresson said she was not informed until the decision had already been made and Habash was en route to France. Mitterrand, on a state visit to Oman, did not learn of the decision until Thursday, after Habash was already on French soil.

According to PLO attorneys in Paris, Habash had been promised immunity by officials “at the highest level of the French government” before he made the trip to Paris. When he was belatedly informed of the affair, however, Mitterrand said Habash would not be protected from French judicial interrogation during his stay.

On Thursday, French investigative magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the country’s top anti-terrorism law enforcement official, ordered Habash held in official custody for questioning about a cache of weapons found in 1986 in the Fountainebleau Forest near Paris.

But Bruguiere said he would not interrogate Habash if doctors said his physical condition would not tolerate it. Late Friday night, Bruguiere visited the Red Cross hospital where the Palestinian was under care and was told that Habash, who had suffered a previous heart attack for which he was treated in Germany, was not strong enough to undergo questioning.

Bruguiere then lifted his 48-hour police custody order on Habash, leaving the Palestinian leader free to leave. To avoid television and newspaper reporters waiting for Habash outside the Henri-Dunant Hospital, French police staged a fake departure motorcade in which they led dozens of journalists to the wrong airport.

Fifteen minutes later, Habash left by ambulance in another police motorcade to Orly Airport on the opposite side of Paris. Reporters at Orly said that Habash, looking weak and walking slowly, mounted the steps of the small jet passenger aircraft under his own power.