(Adds details from Foreign Ministry briefing)

By Anna Willard

PARIS, Feb 7 (Reuters) - France is prepared to pass to Chad any request for a pardon of six French aid workers jailed for abducting children from Chad, President Nicolas Sarkozy's spokesman said on Thursday.

Chad's president, Idriss Deby, who last week received the endorsement of the former colonial power as he fought off a rebel attack on his capital, has said he is ready to issue a pardon.

The aid workers were arrested in Chad in October for trying to kidnap 103 local children, who they attempted to take to Europe without permission from the authorities. They were given eight years' hard labour, but allowed to serve their sentences in French jails.

The episode caused outrage in Chad and their group, Zoe's Ark, was widely criticised at home for acting irresponsibly.

But anti-French street protests and the harsh tone of some comments in Chad also angered many in France who felt the group had been misguided but not essentially malevolent.

"Of course if the members of Zoe's Ark sent us a request for a pardon, we would immediately transmit it to the Chadian authorities," Sarkozy's spokesman David Martinon told a regular news briefing in Paris.

"As you know, pardons are only granted on request and it's not up to governments to ask."

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani denied there was a link between France's support for Deby and his willingness to pardon the aid workers. She said each individual would have to make a separate request.

Zoe's Ark said during the affair that it was rescuing orphans from Sudan's Darfur region, a conflict zone across Chad's eastern border, and that it intended to fly them to foster families in Europe.

Most of the children were found to have come from families in Chadian border villages who had been persuaded to give up their offspring in exchange for promises of education.

Deby confirmed his intention to France's Europe 1 radio on Thursday.

"I am ready to pardon them," he said. "The Chadian children did not leave ... we were able to avoid the worst." (Reporting by James Mackenzie and Anna Willard; editing by Kevin Liffey)

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