Chad’s president announced on Thursday that he will grant the pardon of the six French aid workers who were condemned in December for trying to take over 100 children out of the country claiming that they were orphans from the Darfur region.

President Idriss Deby said at Europe-1 radio that it is possible to issue the pardon only after France issues one, but he is ready to pardon the six sentenced to eight years of hard labor by a Chad court.

The case caused much commotion in Chad, but after the support given by France this week in a rebel incursion in N'Djamena, the pardon may seem a little more acceptable to the Chadians.

In October the members of the aid group Zoe’s Ark were arrested by the Chadian authorities just as they were preparing to send to France 103 children by plane. The members claimed that they were only helping the orphans coming from the Darfur region and that they planned to place them into foster families.

But U.N. officials made investigations and found that the children had at least one parent or a close relative, so they weren’t orphans.

The six were sent to France and their sentence was transformed into eight years in prison by a French court.

Chadians were enraged by this fact and said that this was a special treatment for Europeans.

The case has dropped in importance for the government which now is fighting rebels who took the capital by storm.

Deby announced Thursday that France made over flights in order to supervise the Chad Sudan border. France has over 1,500 troops in its former colony.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that France is ready to attack the rebels if it is required.

Deby said that the members of the Zoe's Ark "did what they did. The Chadian children did not leave, they are with their parents. We were able to avoid the worst. What does it bring me to have five, six French people in prison