Overconfidence was probably a factor in the incident that led to the deaths of 10 French soldiers in an ambush in Afghanistan, the French commander in the region was quoted as saying.

"In the past two weeks we had largely secured the zone but you have to be frank, we were guilty of overconfidence," General Michel Stollsteiner told the daily newspaper Le Parisien.

"We were surprised instead of surprising our adversary," said Stollsteiner, commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Kabul region since August 5.

Ten soldiers were killed and 21 wounded in the ambush in a rugged mountain region some 60 km from the capital Kabul, the worst French military loss in 25 years and the heaviest allied combat loss in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

French commanders have said they will go through what happened in the ambush to try to draw lessons for the future and President Nicolas Sarkozy has promised the families of the dead soldiers they would be kept fully informed.

The incident shocked France and has led to calls for a reassessment of strategy, although Sarkozy has insisted France will maintain its engagement and no major political party has called for a pullout.

Defence Minister Herve Morin and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will appear before a parliamentary committee on Tuesday to answer questions and the National Assembly will vote at the end of September on whether to keep French troops in the region.

Kouchner said the military effort alone would not succeed in bringing stability to the region.

"I am sure...that the military strategy, which has been indispensable initially, will not be enough," he told France Inter radio.

"We need what is called 'Afghanisation', that's to say to pass responsibilities, all responsibilities, as quickly as possible to the Afghans."