By Crispian Balmer

PARIS, Nov 7 (Reuters) - French officials sought on Wednesday to ease tensions with Chad after President Nicolas Sarkozy offended local sensibilities by promising to bring home a group of Europeans accused of abducting 103 African children.

Chad ministers slapped down Sarkozy's comment on Tuesday, saying their own judiciary would handle the case of the self-proclaimed humanitarians, who are charged with abduction and fraud for trying to fly the children to France.

Sarkozy's spokesman said the president had never meant to question Chadian independence, but had simply repeated his preference to see the six French nationals involved tried at home rather than in N'Djamena, where they are now detained.

"What he said to N'Djamena ... was that obviously everything depends on the decisions of the Chadian judicial authorities. One cannot think differently," spokesman David Martinon told reporters in Washington, where Sarkozy is on a state visit.

The French president flew to Chad on Sunday to pick up three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants who were among 17 Europeans arrested last month as they prepared to fly the children out of the country.

The organisation involved, Zoe's Ark, has said the children were orphans from the neighbouring Darfur region, but the Chadians said almost all the infants had at least one parent and had came from the Chad-Sudan borderlands.

The accused face up to 20 years in jail with hard labour if found guilty in Chad, a former French colony. They would get less severe penalties if tried in France.

A HELPING HAND

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon also weighed in on the row on Wednesday, denouncing Zoe's Ark, but adding that French citizens were always entitled to help from Paris.

"This association deceived us," Fillon told Europe 1 radio. "That said, the representatives of this association are French nationals and have the right to the protection of France."

Opposition politicians sided with Chad on Wednesday, saying Sarkozy had gone too far by pledging on Tuesday to return to N'Djamena and bring the Europeans back "whatever they may have done".

Jean-Marc Ayrault, head of the Socialist party in the lower house of parliament, said the French president was trying to do too much, involving himself in every aspect of French life.

"One might say that there is no more government. He is doing everything and at the end of the day he makes mistakes. That wasn't a small mistake, it was a serious mistake," Ayrault told LCI television.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, an ex-aid worker, has maintained a low profile during the scandal and critics have suggested his energetic past might have inspired the Zoe's Ark team to embark on their own escapade.

"This is the ruin of the Kouchner system," said Marine Le Pen, deputy-president of the far-right National Front. (Additional reporting by Jon Boyle in Paris and Emmanuel Jarry in Washington; Editing by Jon Boyle and Mary Gabriel)

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