Paris - The French government is preparing to deploy reinforcements to Afghanistan to comply with the wishes of US president-elect Barack Obama to carry out a military "surge" there, the online edition of the daily Liberation reported on Thursday.

The new deployment is likely to consist of several hundred soldiers and will eventually form part of a "French brigade" that will be stationed near the valley of Kapissa, the daily reported.

The creation of this brigade will correspond to the transfer of responsibility for security in the capital Kabul and its region to Afghan forces, freeing the French troops currently stationed there to be deployed elsewhere in the country.

Some 2,800 French soldiers are currently deployed in Afghanistan to help fight the insurrection by the extremist Taliban rebels.

They form about 5 per cent of the Western troops stationed in the country.

With France scheduled to be fully integrated in NATO by April 2009, the French government will be obliged to take on more responsibility in alliance missions, such as the one in Afghanistan, Liberation said.

The report comes several days after a mysterious group calling itself the Revolutionary Front for Afghanistan planted five sticks of dynamite in a Paris department store and demanded the withdrawal of all French troops from the country.

In reaction to that incident, Defence Minister Herve Morin said Wednesday that France had no intention of increasing its forces in Afghanistan. (dpa)