PARIS, April 2, 2008 (AFP) - France may be forced to foot a six-million-euro bill for damages on behalf of six charity workers pardoned by Chad's president and freed from jail this week, a report said Wednesday.

The members of French charity Zoe's Ark were released Monday from French jails where they were serving out eight-year sentences handed down by a Chadian court for trying to fly 103 children out of the country.

Their release followed an official pardon by Chadian President Idriss Deby, but Ndjamena insists they must still pay some 6.3 million euros (9.8 million dollars) in legal damages to the children's families.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday it was 'out of the question that French taxpayers pay six million euros for mistakes France did not make.'

But French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Wednesday that the French state had agreed to guarantee the payment.

According to the paper, Chadian Justice Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke wrote to his French counterpart Rachida Dati Tuesday, stipulating that 'competence for the execution of the Chadian court decision has been transferred to France, which alone guarantees effective payment of the damages.'

Le Figaro published an earlier letter sent by Padacke on December 28, two days after the workers were convicted to eight years' hard labour, setting out the conditions for them to be repatriated to serve their sentences in France.

Given that the transfer 'does not cancel the payment of the damages, it is understood that the state making the request (France) guarantees effective payment of the civil damages,' he wrote.

The French justice ministry confirmed Wednesday that the December 28 letter was genuine, but denied it put France under obligation to pay the outstanding damages. It said it had yet to receive the second letter.

'It is not the French state but French nationals' who have been convicted, said justice ministry spokesman Guillaume Didier.

According to a source close to the case, the Chadian minister's sentence 'does not commit French interests.'

Four of the aid workers still face charges in France relating to the case.

They insist they were misled into believing the children were orphans from Sudan's Darfur region, but international aid staff later found almost all to be Chadian, and to have at least one living relative.

The case raised tensions between France and its former colony, as Paris prepared to spearhead an EU peacekeeping force in eastern Chad to protect refugee camps in the region bordering Darfur.

The Chadian pardon came after France helped Deby fight off a rebel assault in February.