French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost a court case seeking to halt sales of a novelty voodoo kit that contained a doll in his likeness, needles and a guidebook.

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The court in Paris in a ruling today rejected Sarkozy's claims that the doll made by K&B Publishers violated his exclusive right to control the use of his image.

The voodoo doll ''falls within the authorized boundaries of freedom of expression and humor,'' said Judge Isabelle Nicolle in a seven-page decision refusing to issue an emergency order banning the dolls.

After a hearing on Sarkozy's bid to halt the sales last week, the dolls were a top-selling item on Amazon.com Inc.'s French Web site and were sold out at Paris FNAC stores, a retail chain owned by luxury-goods maker PPR SA. About 20,000 of the dolls were originally produced.

K&B has also made a Segolene Royal voodoo kit with a doll depicting Sarkozy's Socialist rival in last year's presidential race.

''The judge recognized the humorous nature of this,'' said Laurent Dubois, a political-science professor at Sorbonne University in Paris, in an interview. ''The Segolene doll proves that Sarkozy wasn't the sole target.''

The lawsuit was at least the sixth personal claim Sarkozy filed this year. The French president, 53, won a suit against Ryanair Holdings Plc in February over an ad featuring his then fiancé and now first lady, Carla Bruni.

'Voodoo Cult'

The Ryanair case involved an ad showing Bruni imagining in wedding guests taking advantage of discount airfares. Sarkozy also sued a magazine for printing his text message to his ex-wife offering to cancel the wedding to Bruni. The couple wed in February.

Thierry Herzog, Sarkozy's lawyer, said he hasn't decided whether to appeal today's decision.

The Ryanair decision, which was based on his right to control use of his image, differed from the voodoo doll case because it was ''purely for publicity ends; there was nothing informative about the ads,'' K&B lawyer Arnaud Rouillon said to the court during the Oct. 24 hearing.

Nicolle wrote that ''even if it seems unpleasant in some ways to ask readers to stick pins in a doll-effigy'' a judge ''doesn't rate the good or poor taste of the idea, and no one could take this seriously and believe it promotes a voodoo cult.''