N'DJAMENA - Six French humanitarian workers accused in Chad of trying to smuggle 103 African children to Europe will go on trial on December 21 after authorities speeded up the handling of their case, lawyers said on Thursday.

In an affair that has strained ties between France and its former colony, the six face criminal charges including attempted kidnapping and fraud after they were detained in late October for trying to fly the children, aged 1-10, out of Chad.

The accused French nationals are members of a humanitarian activist group called Zoe's Ark which said it planned to place children from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region with European families for fostering.

Chadian authorities and United Nations officials who questioned the children said the majority were not orphans and came from villages in the frontier region of eastern Chad.

The six accused, who could face forced labour terms if convicted, have denied the charges and started a hunger strike on Friday, refusing food but drinking water. They said they had been abandoned by the French government.

Three Chadians are also due to go on trial as accomplices.

Lawyers representing the accused said they were surprised at the rapid start date for the trial, less than two months after the six were arrested in eastern Chad along with 11 other European nationals who were subsequently released.

"It's all happening at top speed. Everything is accelerated," defence lawyer Jean-Bernard Padare told Reuters, saying this meant the defence team had had much less time to prepare its case.

The speed of the proceedings has raised speculation in both countries that the six French nationals might be returned to France in a deal between Chadian President Idriss Deby and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy.

France has strongly condemned the Zoe's Ark operation. The French military, which has a bilateral defence accord with Chad, has been supporting Deby's army with intelligence and logistics in its fight against rebel groups in the east of the country.

COURT APPEARANCE

Journalists who glimpsed the six accused when they appeared in court on Thursday said they seemed relaxed and in relatively good health, despite their hunger strike. Some read newspapers.

At one point, three French Army medics arrived in an ambulance and went into the court to treat one of the accused, Alain Peligat. But no details were given of his ailment.

Another defence lawyer, Abdou Lamian, complained the defence team had not been able to appeal against the criminal case brought against the accused, whom he said were tired.

"They are very, very disappointed," he said.

French troops are due to provide the bulk of a European Union peacekeeping force that is scheduled to deploy in the east of Chad in the coming weeks on a U.N. mission to protect Sudanese and Chadian refugees and foreign aid workers.

Sarkozy, who has said he would prefer the six to be tried in France, last month flew to Chad to collect three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants who were released after intense diplomatic pressure from Paris.

Five days later, Chad released three remaining Spanish aircrew members and a Belgian pilot.

These releases angered many Chadians and some anti-French protests took place in N'Djamena.