"France must hand Bani Sadr over to Iran," Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said in a speech marking the anniversary of the former president's 1981 overthrow.

"There are numerous documents proving that Bani Sadr has planned and ordered acts of terror in cooperation with the hypocrites that have led to the deaths of Iranian civilians," he added, referring to the People's Mujahadeen rebels.

"If the French government wants to make good on its claim to defend democracy and fight against terrorists, then it should hand these elements over to us," the Mehr news agency quoted the general as saying.

Bani Sadr was elected president in January 1980 hot on the heels of the previous year's Islamic revolution but was ousted by revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in June 1981.

He then briefly made common cause against the regime with the People's Mujahedeen, before the armed rebels took Iraq's side in its deadly eight-year war with Iran.

Maryam Rajavi, one of the most prominent leaders of the rebels' political arm, the National Council of the Iranian Resistance, is also based in France.