ALGIERS — The silence of Algeria’s ailing president since the kidnapping and beheading of a French hiker by Islamic State-inspired militants has ignited new concerns over his health and whether he’s fit to rule the oil-rich North African nation — or indeed whether he’s still doing so. Since Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s election to a fourth term in April, the 77-year-old leader has been almost entirely absent from public view, including during key crises such as the crash of an Air Algeria plane in July that killed 118 passengers, half of them French. He last appeared on television in August. After the appearance of a video Thursday showing extremists beheading hiker Herve Gourdel, French President Francois Hollande spoke twice with Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, rather than Bouteflika as would have been customary. — AFP