Those affected include baggage handlers, security agents, drivers, cleaners and clerks believed to be “linked to fundamentalist movements with potential terrorist activities”, said Jacques Lebrot, who is in charge of security at the airport north of the city.

Most have been suspended from their jobs after an investigation by security agencies on the orders of the Interior Ministry last May, said M Lebrot, sub-prefect of the Seine-Saint-Denis département. While the majority were Muslims, ten were Tamils and one was a Sikh, M Lebrot said.

Several of those who have lost their clearances had made visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan and some were believed to have spent time at terrorist training camps, police have reported.

One was a friend of Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” now serving a life sentence in America for attempting to blow up a Paris-New York flight, the authorities have said.

Jean-François Cordet, prefect of the département, has said that the security services believed that the suspended men represented a “significant danger” and had been unable to prove that they did not threaten airport security. A total of 200 cases have been investigated since May, with 57,000 airport passes having been issued since January.

Trade unions and lawyers for the suspended workers have gone to court, arguing that the removal of their security badges was illegal because there was no proof of malicious intent and because they had been required to prove their innocence in interviews and through screening checks.

Eric Moutet, a lawyer for several of the suspended men, said that it was not clear what criteria were being used to exclude workers.

A local court is to hear a complaint by 11 airport workers for wrongful dismissal on November 10. The workers’ case is also being investigated by the state High Authority for the Fight Against Discrimination.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, said last month: “I cannot accept that people who observe radical practices work on the airport site. I prefer that we take the risk of a dispute because we are too strict than that we find ourselves with a drama because we were not strict enough.”

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