President Nicolas Sarkozy has set as a "top priority" the release of Clotilde Reiss, a young French lecturer on trial in Iran on charges related to post-election protests, his office said on Monday.

An Iranian court has charged Reiss, 24, along with dozens of other detainees, with spying and helping a Western plot to overthrow the government.

“The president of the republic is following Clotilde Reiss’s case very carefully,” an official in Sarkozy’s office said.

“He is increasing his contacts with people who have the influence to bring this affair to a rapid conclusion and secure her release. That is the main priority in this case,” he added.

France has denied that Reiss was a spy.

Meanwhile, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner confirmed on Monday that the French embassy in Tehran had been ready to shelter Iranian protesters fleeing the police during the post-election unrest.

“If protestors being chased had sought refuge in the French embassy the instruction was to open the door. This is a European order. This is in our democratic tradition”, said Kouchner in an interview with the French daily newspaper Le Parisien.

The admission came after a dual nationality employee from the embassy’s cultural section, Nazak Afshar, was accused of acting against Iran’s national security at a revolutionary court in Tehran on Saturday.

According to Iran’s official IRNA news agency, Afshar “confessed” that French embassy employees had been instructed to give refuge to protesters in case of a clash with police in front of the mission’s compound, fuelling Tehran’s suspicion that foreign powers were behind the post-election unrest.

Foreigners charged with “spying”

Iran has put around 110 people in the dock, including prominent Iranian reformists and two employees of foreign embassies, as well as one French national.

French lecturer Clotilde Reiss was arrested on July 1 as she was about to catch a flight to Beirut. She was later charged with “spying” and “inciting riots” after admitting that she took part in the protests at Isfahan, emailed photos to friends, and sent a report to the French embassy.

Clotilde Reiss’ case has sparked outrage in France, and Kouchner has repeatedly called for her to be freed, saying the charges against her are “completely without basis”.

“Saying a 23 year-old French woman incited millions of people to demonstrate is not serious. She didn’t instigate protests (…) she merely walked along with hundreds of thousands of Iranians, and that’s not an offence”, said Kouchner.

Rape allegations in Tehran’s jail

On the Iranian side, allegations of sexual abuse of detainees emerged after defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi asked for an investigation by Iran’s powerful Council of Expediency.

“Some senior officials told me that ... really shameful issues ... Some young male detainees were raped ... also some young female detainees were raped in a way that has caused serious injuries” said Karoubi in a letter he wrote to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and current head of the Expediency Council.

About 2,000 people were arrested in the wake of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s contested re-election on June 12. Iranian authorities have said that now only about 200 protesters remain in custody after being transferred to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

Iranian authorities acknowledged on Thursday that “serious violations” took place in the Kahrizak detention centre in southern Tehran - where the death of three protesters was earlier reported by moderate websites.

The dead included Mohsen Ruholamini who is the son of top advisor to former Revolutionary Guard commander and defeated presidential candidate, Mohsen Rezaie.

“The head of the centre has been sacked and jailed. Three policemen who beat detainees have been jailed as well,” reported IRNA, quoting Iran's police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam.

Iran's top judge, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, ordered his envoys to visit all “prisons and detention centres” to check on conditions.

Rape is punishable by death in Iran.