(Adds quote, hearing to resume Wednesday)

By Moumine Ngarmbassa and Alain Amontchi

N'DJAMENA, Dec 24 (Reuters) - French army medical staff carried a French nurse out of a Chadian courtroom on Monday after she was taken ill while on hunger strike during her trial for trying to kidnap 103 African children.

The medics lifted Nadia Merimi by stretcher out of the courtroom and whisked her away in a military ambulance in the direction of a French military base in Chad's capital N'Djamena, Reuters witnesses inside and outside the court said.

"Nadia was very, very weak and had a serious drop in blood pressure, and it seemed necessary to send her to hospital to put her on a drip and make her eat normally," defence lawyer Mario Stasi told Reuters TV outside the court house afterwards.

"I don't think it's very serious, but we had to do it."

Stasi did not say whether Merimi had ended the hunger strike she and her five French co-accused started on Dec. 7 to draw attention to their case, which they say has been neglected by France since President Nicolas Sarkozy helped secure the release of three French journalists and a Spanish air crew last month.

The six members of humanitarian group Zoe's Ark, led by Eric Breteau, are charged with child kidnapping and fraud for trying to fly the children out to live with European families who paid thousands of euros each. Several Chadians are also on trial.

"CHILD TRADER"

"What Eric Breteau did can only be described as trade in children," state lawyer Philippe Houssine told the court.

The six insist they are innocent, but if convicted face possible forced labour sentences of five to 20 years.

Local lawyers and many Chadians expect them to be sent back to France after the verdict, under bilateral judicial accords, or a pardon granted by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

The defence team said the court was rushing the case.

"We have the impression that the Chadian courts want to get this trial off their hands quickly. ... Everyone is saying this trial is a pretext for a political solution," defence lawyer Gilbert Collard, told France's Europe 1 radio by telephone.

Zoe's Ark had said they intended to rescue orphans from the conflict over Chad's eastern border in Sudan's Darfur region.

But investigations have found most of the children were from Chadian villages on the border, and many had parents.

Mahamat Hassan Ahamat took the witness stand on Monday on behalf of the parents of around a dozen children taken from around the border town of Tine, including his own two sons.

He said there was no school in his village and when he heard white people were offering to educate children he willingly sent his boys off with Mahamat Eritero, one of the Chadians who worked with Zoe's Ark, without ever meeting the Europeans.

"I heard nothing about orphans from Darfur -- I only heard people talking about school," he told the court in Arabic.

Asked about compensation, he said: "Let justice be done, and as for compensation, I leave my lawyer to judge that".

A lawyer for the relatives said last week they were seeking 100 million euros ($144 million) in civil damages from the accused -- a sum defence lawyers say smacks of profiteering.

The case, which resumes Wednesday, is an embarrassment for France, which supports Deby's rule and is providing the backbone of a peacekeeping force due to deploy next year to protect refugee camps and aid workers in the country's violent east. (Additional reporting by Gilles Trequesser in Paris; writing by Alistair Thomson; editing by Mary Gabriel)

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