PARIS French scientists presented new evidence backing a long-held theory that Napoleon Bonaparte died of arsenic poisoning rather than cancer, AFP reported on Friday.

Bertrand Ludes and Pascal Kintz, two respected forensic experts, said studies they had conducted on a sample of Napoleon's hair show that France's most famous emperor had died from repeated exposure to arsenic.

The two doctors conducted their analysis on behalf of Ben Weider, a Canadian millionaire businessman and Napoleon enthusiast who for years has defended the poison theory.

Weider, founder of the International Napoleonic Society, called upon Ludes and Kintz after historians and experts cast doubt on similar findings made in 1995 by the FBI lab in the United States which examined another lock of the emperor's hair.

"If people still doubt the poison theory despite the findings by French experts, the only thing left to do is to exhume Napoleon's body and carry out further analysis," a spokesman for Weider said Friday. "But that's not something we are currently considering."

Napoleon, whose armies at one point occupied much of Europe, died in British captivity on the Atlantic island of St. Helena on May 5, 1821, aged 51. The official cause of death was given as stomach cancer.

But Weider and other historians have long disputed that theory and believe Napoleon died of an arsenic overdose administered by his closest aide, Count Charles de Montholon.

According to Francois de Cande-Montholon, a direct descendant of Montholon, his ancestor laced the emperor's wine with arsenic and used other means to gradually poison him with the aim of merely making him ill and having him repatriated to France.

The emperor, however, was also being given calomel, a laxative, and the mixture of the two substances produced cyanide, which killed him, Cande-Montholon believes.

Opponents of the arsenic theory have argued that the poison could have come from a product Napoelon used to care for his hair.