French Defense Official Resigns

French Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement resigned today, exposing the most visible rift yet within an allied government over the course of the Persian Gulf War.

Chevenement aides said he resigned because he disagreed with the massive aerial bombardment of Iraq, which he felt was not approved in United Nations resolutions permitting the use of force to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Diplomatic sources said Chevenement considered that France was breaching the resolutions by trying to destroy Iraq.

“The logic of war risks driving us further every day from objectives fixed by U.N. resolutions,” he said in his resignation letter.

Government spokesman Hubert Vedrine said Chevenement would be replaced by Interior Minister Pierre Joxe, a loyalist supporter of President Francois Mitterrand and Socialist Party stalwart.

Chevenement, 51, said he had told Mitterrand of his views at the start of December, soon after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing force against Iraq if it did not pull out of Kuwait by Jan. 15.

France, a member of the U.S.-led alliance which went to war against Iraq Jan. 17, has sent more than 10,000 troops and warplanes to the Persian Gulf. But it was only last week that Mitterrand approved sorties by French jets against targets in Iraq.