ROME, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Italy's press reacted strongly on Wednesday to a French court's decision to grant Marina Petrella bail, calling it the result of 'widespread support' for the convicted Red Brigades member.

Italian newspapers also reiterated calls for the ailing 54-year-old to be extradited to Italy, with one saying the bail move was taken to please French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Italian wife and her sister.

'Rallying (in Petrella's support) is almost universal in France: the Socialist party and the Sarkozy family are personally involved, from Carla Bruni to her sister Valeria Bruni Tedeschi', said Il Corriere della Sera, Italy's largest daily.

'France's decision to free Petrella, the ex-Red Brigades member, was taken to please (Carla) Bruni and the Left', said Il Giornale, the Milan daily owned by the family of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

'The court's decision on Tuesday is yet another political signal for a humanitarian solution to be reached, but it does not diminish the extradition ruling', added Il Corriere della Sera.

The widow of Massimo D'Antona, a lawyer murdered in 1999 by a splinter faction of Italy's Red Brigades, backed Petrella's extradition.

This ruling 'must not interfere with the ongoing extradition process. Italy is a democratic country, which neither practises torture nor has the death penalty', said Olga D'Antona in La Repubblica.

'Nicolas Sarkozy's decision in July to ask the Italian authorities to show (Petrella) mercy does not make sense. You cannot offer extradition in return for clemency. The French president should take responsibility for his choices', she added.

The Rome-based daily Il Messagero believed Petrella has little chance of forgiveness, saying: 'No terrorist has ever been pardoned.'

Tuesday's ruling to grant Petrella bail allows her to receive hospital treatment without a police guard, after doctors in a Paris psychiatric ward said she has 'given up on life'.

However, it does not suspend the extradition procedure against her.

The mother-of-two was sentenced in absentia to life in prison by a court in Italy in 1992 for her part in the murder of a police officer in 1981 and many abductions and attempted kidnappings.

She settled in France in the early 1990s under an offer of asylum made by the late president Francois Mitterrand but was arrested last August.