Sarkozy letter surprises French cartoons hearing

PARIS (Reuters) - A French paper accused of insulting Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad surprised a court hearing on Wednesday with a letter of support from presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.

"I prefer an excess of caricatures to an absence of caricatures," Sarkozy, the conservative interior minister who helped launch the French Muslim Council, wrote in a letter read out by a lawyer for the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The letter from the presidential frontrunner, whose ministry is also responsible for religious affairs, drew an angry response from one of three Muslim groups suing the weekly.

"He should remain neutral," Abdullah Zekri of the Paris Grand Mosque said at the court hearing the case on Wednesday and Thursday and due to deliver its decision at a later date.

The French Muslim Council held an emergency meeting later on Wednesday and some members urged resignations in protest, but its leader Dalil Boubakeur said no decision would be made now.

Sarkozy, who brought competing Muslim groups together in 2003 to form the Muslim Council to represent Islam in France, noted he had often been "a favorite target" of Charlie Hebdo but supported "the right to smile at everything."

The Grand Mosque, World Islamic League and Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) sued the magazine for printing two of the Danish caricatures -- which sparked violence in the Muslim world, causing 50 deaths -- and adding one of its own.

The Muslim groups said the cartoon showing a bomb in the Prophet's turban slandered all Muslims as terrorists, as did Charlie Hebdo's cartoon showing the Prophet reacting to Islamist militants by saying: "It's hard to be loved by idiots."

"This is an attack on Muslims," UOIF President Lhaj Thami Breze told the court. "It is as if the prophet taught terrorism to Muslims, and so all Muslims are terrorists."

WHAT IS SACRED?

Charlie Hebdo publisher Philippe Val said he published the caricatures in February 2006 after the editor-in-chief of the Paris tabloid France Soir was fired after reprinting them.

He said the lack of prompt European support for Denmark as its embassies were attacked in the Middle East also upset him.