French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday vowed to publish in full the results of a probe into allegations police tortured suspects detained during a 1990s bombing campaign by Algerian militants in France.

Sarkozy ordered the investigation after five former police officers confessed in a new book to taking part in, or witnessing, beatings and torture of suspects in 1995.

The alleged abuse was said to have been carried out by officers investigating attacks by Algeria?s Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which killed 10 people and wounded 200 others between July and November 1995.

French youth have long complained about their treatment at the hands of police, citing abuses and a lack of respect as one of the reasons for riots that erupted in run-down urban areas last November.

?As soon as the facts were brought to my attention, I launched an inquiry by the National Police General Inspectorate. This inquiry is on-going, I will publish all elements of this inquiry,? Sarkozy said on RMC radio.

?Either the facts are proved and, in that case, there will be disciplinary action. Or these are lies, and in that case I reserve the right to protect the honour of men whose work allowed lives to be saved,? he said.

?We are 11 years after the facts, nobody has ever heard talk of this before. The witness accounts are sometimes anonymous,? Sarkozy added.

In ?Place Beauveau?, the title is drawn from the address of the Interior Ministry in central Paris, the authors quote former officers as saying the suspects were tortured with electricity, beaten, deprived of water and food for several days.

Some of those quoted, who are not named, said they took part in the torture, which is said to have occurred in Paris and the southeastern city of Lyon.

?I was staggered to read that,? Claude Gueant, Sarkozy?s chief of staff, told Saturday?s Le Monde newspaper. Gueant was director of French police at the time of the alleged torture.

?In 1995, we absolutely wanted to find those responsible for the attacks, but such methods were never envisaged by the hierarchy,? he told the paper.

In the most serious incident during the 1995 campaign of attacks, eight people died and 150 were wounded when a homemade device filled with nails and bolts exploded in the busy St Michel suburban railway station in central Paris.

Sarkozy also responded to a leaked report by the Council of Europe?s human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles, due out on Wednesday, which said French prisons were overcrowded and police operated with a sense of impunity.

Sarkozy, whose portfolio covers police but not the justice or prison systems, said major investment was needed to prevent prisons becoming schools for crime and extremism.

?When you?re sentenced to a prison term you are not sentenced to being raped in prison. You?re not sentenced to rot in undignified conditions,? he said. ?A huge investment is needed to overhaul the daily life inside our prisons.?

Helene FONTANAUD</B>