Regional president shocked by email requesting employees' religion

France's interior minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, has opened an internal enquiry after one of the country's 26 regional councils received a request from the intelligence service for information on the religion of its employees.

The president of the east-central French regional authority of Rhône-Alpes, Jean-Jack Queyranne, said he had found the request "scandalous."

"Would you be in a position to inform me whether among your personnel you have members of staff whose religion is other than Christian?" was one of the questions received last month by the human resources department of the regional government of Rhône-Alpes.

"If the answer is yes, could you tell me whether some of them have requested special working hours to be able to practise their religion?" was another..

They were in an email, sent by the region's intelligence service, which claimed that it was part of a study being carried out on behalf of the Association des maires de France (French mayors association) an umbrella group which represents the country's almost 36,000 mayors.

It was a claim officially denied by the association.

As soon as he learnt of it, Queyranne, quickly went public and demanded an explanation from Alliot-Marie.

On Thursday he told prime time news on national television that such a request not only ran contrary to the constitution here in France - where there's a strict separation of church and state - but also broke the principles and rules governing those employed in public service.

He said it also gave the impression that the regional government was categorising its employees - civil servants - according to religious beliefs.

"When people come here to work here we simply don't ask them what their beliefs are, or whether they practise this or that religion," he said.

"There has been a huge controversy surrounding the introduction of Edvige (a centralised electronic database to hold details of people considered likely to breach public order) and the government has been forced to backtrack on requesting information on sexual orientation and health," he added.

"And now we're being asked to provide information on the faith of our employees. It's scandalous."

In an attempt to calm fears that the email had been an attempt by the state to try to gather data regarding its employees' religion, the director of the region's intelligence service, Jacques Signourel, insisted that it had been sent by a person working in his department who had taken it upon himself to make the request.

"It would appear to have been the action of one individual who didn't get the permission of his superiors before sending the email," he said

"Similarly he had no instructions to do what he did," he added.

And Gerard Gachet, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said that the request had been both "unacceptable" and "inappropriate" and that the person who had sent it would now face a disciplinary hearing.

But according to France 2 television, Rhône-Alpes had confirmed that it was not the only regional council to have received such a request for information.

The timing of this latest disclosure could not have been worse for Alliot-Marie, who was forced to revise plans for the introduction of Edvige last month after the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, intervened in the ongoing row.

Thousands of French have signed an online petition to the database, which initially included proposals to centralise information on political, business and religious leaders, government employees and even children as young as 13. Youngsters who perhaps had no criminal record but whose activities and social milieu leaves them "susceptible" to becoming members of gangs.

The Conseil d'État - the country's equivalent of the Supreme Court - is due to rule at the end of December on the legality of Edvige.