Ten French soldiers have been killed in an ambush by Taleban fighters near the Afghan capital in the biggest battle loss for French forces since 1983.

President Sarkozy announced that he will travel later today to Afghanistan after the attack, which has shocked France and will stiffen opposition to his recent reinforcement of the Nato security operation.

“My determination is intact. France is determined to continue the struggle against terrorism for democracy and freedom. The cause is just,” Mr Sarkozy said in a statement.

The 10 lost their lives in fierce clashes that began with an attack yesterday on an International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) patrol in Sarobi district, about 30 miles east of Kabul, according to Afghan officials. About two dozen soldiers from the force were wounded.

Afghan defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said that 13 rebels including a Pakistani national had also been killed in the clashes as troops thwarted a second attack on a key US military base in as many days.

The latest casualties bring to 24 the number of French troops killed in action or in accidents in Afghanistan since French soldiers were first sent there in 2002. French forces there now number 3,000.

The incident was the deadliest for international soldiers in post-Taleban Afghanistan, excluding helicopter or plane crashes. Nine US soldiers were killed in an attack on a base in northeastern Kunar province on July 13.

Mr Sarkozy had warned France to expect casualties when he sent 700 combat troops to bolster allied forces in eastern Afghanistan last April but the high toll is a blow to Mr Sarkozy's policy of rapprochement with Nato.

He sent the troops in - despite the misgivings of senior officers and strong criticism from the leftwing opposition -- as part of his drive to draw closer to the Atlantic alliance after four decades outside the Nato military structure.

Mr Sarkozy has passionately defended his action, calling Afghanistan the front line in the global offensive against barbarous terrorism. Not only Afghanistan is at stake, but Pakistan as well, he said in May. “It has the atomic bomb, and if we let Afghanistan fall, Pakistan will fall like a house."

The French deployment has remained unpopular. An opinion poll in May found that only 26 percent approved of Mr Sarkozy's decision, compared with 72 percent who deplored it. French media commentators depicted the new deployment as foolish at a time when military strategists were arguing that the Afghanistan war was lost.

Even members of the President's rightwing camp disagreed. "It is a political decision with the sole aim of making a gesture towards the United States," said Nicolas Dupont Aignan, a dissident Gaullist. "It is an historic and major mistake which breaks with 50 yers of French independent foreign policy."

The ambush inflicted the heaviest losses on the French army since a 1983 bombing in Lebanon in which 58 French parachutists were killed.

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