Illegal immigrants nabbed at Sarkozy's work site

Paris, June 15 (Reuters) Two African workers carrying forged papers were detained by police on a work site of one of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's official residences in an affair that could embarrass the law-and-order hardliner.

The two men of Malian origin were detained on Wednesday on a site at the Lanterne lodge near the palace of Versailles, where Sarkozy and his family have regularly stayed since his election as president last month, a judicial source said today.

A government official said Sarkozy had not ordered the work, but the report risked embarrassing the newly elected president who has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration.

Government official Serge Lasvignes said the works at the former hunting lodge had been ordered in 2002 and not been demanded by Sarkozy.

He denied a report by Le Parisien daily that Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia had ordered work on the residence's swimming pool.

The two men, who held forged residency papers, were detained on Wednesday and released shortly after. They were working for a private company contracted to carry out renovation work on the state-owned site, the source said.

Le Parisien said the employer told investigators he had believed the men's residency papers to be valid.

The two men could be prosecuted for their illegal stay in France and the use of fake documents and risked extradition, the source said. A preliminary inquiry had been opened.

Sarkozy won last month's election on promises of wideranging labour, education and law-and-order reforms.

The president hopes for a large majority in a second round of legislative elections to push the measures through parliament. Surveys see Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party comfortably winning the poll.

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