Mr Sarkozy flew into the capital Kabul yesterday with Defence Minister Herve Morin and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in the wake of the deadliest battle for international forces since the Taliban was ousted in 2001.

"I came to tell you that the work that you are doing here is essential," he told French troops at their base near Kabul.

Mr Sarkozy visited a morgue where the 10 bodies were held before being repatriated, and spoke to some of the survivors of the fighting, which also left 21 troops wounded.

"The best way to be loyal to your comrades is to continue your work, to raise your head, to be professional," he said.

Mr Sarkozy added that despite the shock of the ambush on the patrol, he was convinced French troops should be in Afghanistan with other nations in the fight against Islamist extremists.

"I have no doubt that we must be here," he said.

"I am also in shock ... but I tell you in good conscience that if we had to do it again, I would do it again.

"We are not here against the Afghans, but with the Afghans, so they are not left alone to face the barbarism."

Mr Sarkozy later met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai who expressed his country's condolences for the deaths.

"France has been a great friend of Afghanistan and a great supporter of Afghanistan, and we are tremendously saddened and shaken," he said, as he reiterated calls for coalition partners to focus on extremist sanctuaries and support networks based across the border in Pakistan.

A total of 23 French troops have been killed in action or in accidents in Afghanistan since they were first sent there in 2002.

The 10 French soldiers were killed during fighting on Monday and Tuesday following an ambush on a joint NATO reconnaissance mission with the Afghan national army in Sarobi district, 50km east of Kabul.

The attacks, which involved a co-ordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest US military bases in the country and another by about 100 insurgents who killed the French paratroopers, were the most serious in six years of fighting in Afghanistan and added to a sense of siege around the capital Kabul.

It was also the deadliest attack on French troops since a 1983 assault in Beirut in which 58 French paratroopers were killed.

The Taliban appears to be taking advantage of a wavering NATO commitment, an outgoing US administration, a flailing Afghan Government and a Pakistani Government in disarray to move militants freely across the border.

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