Police arrested a young man for insulting French President Nicolas Sarkozy as the leader visited a deprived suburb, a court official said.

The 21-year-old was arrested at a train station in Seine-Saint-Denis, near the northern Paris suburb of La Courneuve, where Mr Sarkozy made an unannounced visit late on Wednesday evening.

The official said the suspect was hurt and bruised during his arrest and a doctor had signed him off work for nine days. He appeared before a judge yesterday. The court official did not specify the insult the man is alleged to have made to Mr Sarkozy, who has had an unfriendly reception on several previous visits to certain suburbs.

It was in La Courneuve that Mr Sarkozy sparked an outcry in June 2005 when as interior minister he visited a housing estate in the wake of a fatal shooting and said he would "clean it out with a power hose".

Four months later, violent riots erupted in French suburbs, sparked by the death of two youths who were electrocuted when they climbed into a substation as they were fleeing from police in an area near Paris.