President Nicolas Sa­r­­kozy wants to transfer the remains of the writer Albert Camus to one of the most hallowed burial places in France, but the plan has run into opposition from the Nobel laureate’s son, who does not think his father would have wanted the honour.

Camus’s son, Jean, says interring his father’s remains at the Panthéon, the Paris monument to some of the great men and women of France, would be contrary to his father’s wishes and does not want to have his legacy put to work in the service of the state, Le Monde quoted an unidentified intimate of Camus’s as saying.

Jean Camus’s sister, Catherine Camus, who manages her father’s estate, is prepared to give her approval and has spoken with Sarkozy on the subject, Le Monde said.

Sarkozy has said little publicly on the subject, but he noted last week that he had “been in touch with the family members,” adding: “I need their agreement.”

“No decision has been made on the Panthéonisation,” a spokeswoman for the Elysée Palace said, declining to comment further.

The proposal has become a political issue in France, with the Left accusing Sarkozy of trying to lift his fortunes by association with one of the secular saints of modern France. The president is limping along with a 60 per cent disapproval rating, according to a November 9 Ipsos poll for the newsmagazine Le Point.

“What do we have to do to transfer Camus to the Panthéon?” asked one reader on the web site of Le Figaro, a daily that is generally supportive of Sarkozy. “The son doesn’t agree: It’s Sarkozy who proposed it, so it’s suspect! Ah, the day that the Left proposes it, then it will be different. Let’s leave Albert where he is while

we wait.”

Jean Daniel, editor of the newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, said: “The crushing character of the consecration appears contrary to the ideas for which Camus is famous.”

“For me, Camus is the author of The Rebel, who spoke of the heroism of moderation,” Daniel said. “I don’t see the Panthéon glorifying that kind of heroism. Camus was totally libertarian. Never did the rejection of totalitarianism lead him to join either the centre or the right.”

Camus, born to humble circumstances in Algeria, is best known for his ab­sur­dist short novel, The Str­­an­ger, a staple of undergra­duate literature courses. He joined the Communist Party, but later fell out with it. During World War II, he edited Combat, a clandestine new­s­pa­per, and joined a circle of Paris luminaries that included Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

The Panthéon is one of Paris’s grandest monume­nts, its 18th-century dome dominating the skyline of the Left Bank. Originally con­secrated as the Church of Sainte-Geneviève, the anticlerical leaders of the Revolution made it into a temple to the nation’s great men. Today, having reverted several times to church status and back, its necropolis houses the remains of Voltaire and Louis Pasteur, as well as the writers Victor Hugo, André Malraux, Alexandre Dumas and Ém­ile Zola. The chemist and physicist Marie Curie, and Sophie Berthelot, the wife of the chemist Marcellin Ber­thelot, are the only women buried there.

“Camus wasn’t the most innovative of 20th century French writers,” said David Bellos, a translator and professor of French literature at Princeton University. Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Geo­rges Perec “are incomparably more important figures for the history of the novel as an art form.”

“Nor does Camus belong in the company of Hugo, Dumas and Zola as a story teller and a national figure of outsized proportions,” Bellos said. Rather, “he is known for his moral firmness, his common sense and his unwillingness to simplify, and those are values we should continue to honour.”

“Camus also did it very well, and his deceptively simple style continues to challenge and draw in readers all over the world.”

Albert Camus’s remains are buried in the cemetery of Lourmarin, in the Lu­beron area of Provence at present.