A community of Roman Catholic monks in Britain fear that a visit by a senior French politician to lay a wreath at the tomb of Napoleon III this evening is a cover for the start of a campaign for the repatriation of his body.

Christian Estrosi, junior minister for overseas territories, is visiting St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire today, the anniversary of the day that Nice under Napoleon III was annexed by France from Savoy in 1860.

Estrosi, an old friend of President Sarkozy but not one of the inner circle will be at Farnborough as part of his personal campaign for election as Mayor of Nice. He is bringing a phalanx of writers, television and newspaper journalists with him to record what the monks fear will be used an opportunity to demand that the Napoleon III and his wife, the Empress Eugénie be returned to Paris.

The tomb at Farnborough also contains the remains of the Emperor's son, who would have become Napoleon IV had he not been killed while serving with the British Army in the Zulu campaign in 1879.

Estrosi is coming to Farnborough to pay his respects to an emperor who has been partially rehabilitated in recent years. Historians and politicians no longer see his reign simply as a disastrous dictatorship that ended with defeat by the Prussians. He is credited with modernising France and transforming the city of Paris by creating the grands boulevards, building the Opera and doing much else of lasting import, including attempting to build a tunnel under the Channel.

He is a local hero in Nice among the right, so a useful cause for Estrosi. He plans to lay a wreath at the tomb, accompanied by Prince Charles Napoleon, father of the present head of the family , and four or five writers, notably Denis Tillinac, a novelist and historian who is a friend of Jacques Chirac.

The ceremony comes just before the bicentenary of the birth of Napoleon III next year, when Estrosi is expected to start his campaign to have his remains returned from Farnborough. He has not launched the campaign officially, but made his intentions clear in an interview in Le Figaro last week.

His campaign is being opposed by local Socialists in Nice. Patrick Allemand, a Socialist deputy president of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region and mayoral candidate for next spring's council election, says he is shocked by Estrosi's celebration because the "annexation of Nice does not efface the coup d'etat by Napoleon against the republic, his fraudulent elections, the gagging of the press and intellectuals and the debacle at Sedan (where France was defeated by the Prussians)."

To counter Mr Estrosi's celebration of Napoleon III, Mr Allemand is planning to hold a rally in Nice today to commemorate Victor Hugo, who ridiculed the Emperor as "Napoleon le Petit", and Garibaldi, another opponent of the emperor's dictatorship.

Dom Cuthbert Brogan, Abbot of St Michael's, a Benedictine community, said the depths to which the French were sinking was indicated by the description of him in at least one newspaper article as an "Anglican", the implication being that the Emperor should be returned to the bosum of the Catholic Church.

In fact, St Michael's, since its foundation by the Empress around a mausoleum for her husband in 1881, has been a little and devoutly Catholic corner of France in England for many decades. None of the monks there spoke any English until 1947, and the last French monk died in 1965.

Today's monks view with astonishment the interest from France in regaining Napoleon's remains, given that last intervention of the French government at Farnborough was a telegram protesting at the 21 gun salute at the funeral of the Emperor’s wife Eugénie in July 1920. Dom Cuthbert said:" This caused considerable embaraasment. Eugenie had been in exile for 50 years, King George and Queen Mary were present at the Requiem Mass, and the cadets of Sandhurst were ready with their cannon at the foot of the abbey’s fields."

Napoleon II’s repatriation was also controversial – Adolph Hitler arranged it during the occupation of Paris in the Second War.

The minister's visit is unlikely to impress the monks. At the Empress’ funeral, the then abbot promised the Empress in her coffin that the Imperial Family would find faithful guardians in the Abbey’s monks. After a century of bitterness and neglect by the French authorities, the monks are unlikely to see Estrosi’s visit as more than a first step on the path of apology and reparation.

But in spite of the dispute over Napoleon's ownership, the minister will receive a warm welcome. Dom Cuthbert said the community always welcomed those French who come to visit the tombs regularly, particularly the present-day Napoleon family and the present chef-de-famille, Prince Jean-Christophe Napoleon. "His grandmother the Princess Napoleon is a great supporter of the community," he said, "The £1,100,000 restoration of the Abbey Church in 2000 was assisted by the Fondation Napoleon of Paris.

Dom Cuthbert continued: "President Chirac recently re-named a little square in front of the Gard de Nord, Le Place Napoleon III. That is a much better idea than carting bodies all over the place."