President Sarkozy of France was at the centre of a furious row last night after winning a 140 per cent pay rise.

Jean-François Copé, the head of the Union for a Popular Movement parliamentary group, said that the French President’s salary would be brought into line with that of the Prime Minister, who earns €240,000 (£167,000) a year. At present, Mr Sarkozy earns €101,488 a year — less than all his ministers.

Previous French heads of state made up the difference by helping themselves to the cash that was available to them officially to oil the wheels of Government. Mr Sarkozy said he wanted a transparent system. “I want the French to know,” he said.

But Jean-Pierre Balligand, a Socialist MP, said that the decision was scandalous. Arnaud Montebourg, another opposition MP, said: “You get the feeling that the political class is helping itself while the French people are abandoned on the edge of the pavement.”

Mr Sarkozy was also facing a backlash over his handling of the French charity workers and journalists who face 20 years in jail in Chad after their purported mission to rescue civil war orphans ended in fiasco.

The seven charity workers, who include fire officers, a country doctor and a television reporter, were charged with kidnapping and fraud yesterday after their arrest last week as they prepared to fly 103 children from Chad to France.

Two French journalists accompanying the charity, Zoe’s Ark, were charged with the same offences, which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Seven crew members of their Spanish charter were charged with aiding and abetting.

As the Europeans were taken to a courthouse in Abéché near the Sudanese border in eastern Chad, several dozen locals gathered to demonstrate outside. "They are thieves, killers," said one.

Inside, the dishevelled group could be seen in the room where it had spent the night. Some of the Spanish air hostesses appeared close to tears. One of the charity workers gestured to signal he had been beaten in custody. Another lay on a floor mat, apparently in pain.

Zoe’s Ark said it had intended to rescue orphans from Darfur, the war-torn region of Sudan.

But the French Foreign Ministry said a majority of the children — now in care in Abeche — were neither from Darfur nor orphaned.

"Most are Chadian with Chadian parents in Chad," said Eric Chevalier, special adviser to Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister.

President Sarkozy has led the French Government in denouncing a mission he described as ’unacceptable and illegal’. But he was facing a backlash over the way Paris has handled the affair.

"It’s difficult to understand why, if this operation is illegal - and that seems to be the case — the Government did nothing to stop it," said Jean-Louis Bianco, a Socialist MP.

Mr Bianco also accused Mr Sarkozy’s ministers of failing to contradict Idriss Déby, the Chadian President, who claimed Zoe’s Ark wanted to sell the children to paedophiles or kill them and sell their organs.

The charity was founded in 2005 by Eric Breteau, a former fire officer, to help children orphaned by the Asian Tsunami. It has just two employees, Mr Breteau — who is amongst those arrested — and Stéphanie Lefebvre, his assistant, and it operates with the help of 50 volunteers.

When Mr Breteau said he wanted to save children in Darfur this year, he sought foster families who were asked to pay €2,400 each to finance the operation, which cost a total of €550,000.

A legal investigation was launched in France this summer amid claims that the children were destined for adoption rather than foster care.

But the charity’s supporters say its members were misguided and not malevolent. Mr Bianco said one of those detained in Chad was Philippe Van Winkelberg, a doctor from his constituency in the Alps.

’His is totally honest and in good faith,’ said Mr Bianco as locals set up a support group for their village doctor.

Elsewhere, campaigns were set up for Marc Garmirian and Jean-Daniel Guillou, the two reporters charged by the Chadian prosecution service.

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