French ex-minister held in corruption probe - report

CAYENNE, French Guiana (Reuters) - Police conducting a corruption inquiry have detained French Guiana mayor Leon Bertrand, who served as tourism minister under former President Jacques Chirac, Radio France Outre-Mer said on Saturday.

Bertrand, who is mayor of the French Guiana commune Saint Laurent du Maroni, was detained in an investigation into corruption linked to the awarding of public works contracts.

The examining magistrate put Bertrand in temporary detention and gave him four days to prepare a defence, RFO said.

Since Chirac stepped down in 2007, he and several former allies have been the targets of corruption investigations, tainting Chirac's record and leaving a bitter aftertaste from the years when his generation ran France.

Chirac himself was ordered on October 30 to stand trial on embezzlement charges dating from his time as mayor of Paris, while his former interior minister, Charles Pasqua, has been convicted for his role in an arms scandal in the 1990s and received a jail sentence.

(Reporting by Franck Leconte; Writing by Sophie Taylor; Editing by Charles Dick)