Renowned political and social critic Somsak Jeamteerasakul, 60, has collapsed and been hospitalised after suffering a stroke.
Somsak: Fled after 2014 coup
Colleague Pavin Chachavalpongpun posted messages on his Facebook account yesterday saying Mr Somsak was in a hospital in Paris after a stroke left him unable to move the right side of his body.
Doctors gave him medication to reduce his blood pressure and will conduct an MRI scan, said Mr Pavin, citing information from friends in the French capital.
It was too early to tell whether Mr Somsak would regain full use of his body, said the lecturer on Southeast Asian studies at Kyoto University.
Mr Somsak is known for commenting on Thai politics and society on his Facebook page.
The former Thammasat University lecturer is a staunch critic of the regime and the lese majeste law. He left the country after the coup in 2014 due to concerns over his safety.
Before fleeing the country, Mr Somsak worked as a history academic and has written some articles and expressed his views in public about the monarchy. His role in a television show on ThaiPBS was believed to be the cause of the show being taken off the air in 2013.
On Feb 6, 2014, army spokesman Col Winthai Suvaree, then deputy army spokesman, warned that a legal team was examining Mr Somsak's social media posts for evidence of lese majeste.
Later, after Mr Somsak fled the country, Thammasat University rejected his request to take leave to enhance his academic knowledge abroad and dismissed him.
He later lodged a petition with the Administrative Court against the university's order. The court ruled in his favour in April 2016, making the university's order invalid.
