(Recasts with Breteau saying France knew about operation)

By Moumine Ngarmbassa

N'DJAMENA, Dec 21 (Reuters) - The leader of a French aid group accused of trying to kidnap 103 African children in Chad told a court on Friday France's government had known from the start about the group's plans to rescue war orphans from Darfur.

Rejecting abduction and fraud accusations against him and five other members of the Zoe's Ark group, Eric Breteau said they had taken charge of the children to save them from the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region bordering Chad.

"We didn't commit any offence," Breteau said on the opening day of the trial in the Chadian capital N'Djamena.

After the group was arrested in October trying to fly the infants aged 1-10 out of east Chad to Europe, Chadian officials said they had no permission to take the children out of the country and that most were not orphans and came from Chad.

If convicted, the six could face forced labour sentences of between five to 20 years. But there is widespread expectation they could serve jail terms in France under bilateral accords, or benefit from a pardon from Chadian President Idriss Deby.

"Before the launch of our operation to save the Darfur orphans, the French authorities as a whole were informed of our actions," Breteau said. He added a network of families in France had been set up to receive the children.

The Zoe's Ark case has embarrassed France, which supports Deby's rule in landlocked Chad. It has troops stationed in its former colony and is providing the bulk of a European Union peacekeeping force to be deployed in east Chad in January.

Two months before the arrest of the six, France's Foreign Ministry issued a warning about the Zoe's Ark group, saying there was no guarantee the children involved were helpless orphans and casting doubt on the project's legality.

Wearing a shirt carrying the name of Children Rescue, under which Zoe's Ark operated in Chad, Breteau looked thin as he and the other accused have been on hunger strike for over a week, refusing food but drinking water.

He said international rights conventions sanctioned efforts to save war victims like children caught up in Darfur's conflict that has killed around 200,000 people since 2003.

"Among this civilian population, children are most vulnerable ... no one can challenge this nor challenge the legitimate need to help Darfur orphans survive," he said.

The trial continues on Saturday.

FRENCH PRESSURE

Asked by the judge why some of the children were found to be Chadian not Darfuri, and not orphans, Breteau said local intermediaries employed by Zoe's Ark had assured them the children had no living parents and came from Darfur.

Three Chadians and a Sudanese national are being tried along with the French as accomplices.

A lawyer representing parents of some of the children, who are claiming civil damages from the Zoe's Ark members, rejected Breteau's arguments. "Whether they are Darfur orphans or not, that doesn't change anything," said Ndintamaji Laminal.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he would prefer the six French to be tried in France.

Riot police were on standby outside the court in the dusty Chadian capital, where angry protests have occurred against what many Chadians see as French interference in the case.

A defence lawyer for the six, Gilbert Collard, told reporters that politics was "omnipresent" in the case.

Chadian and U.N. officials said inquiries showed most of the 103 children in the case had at least one living parent and came from villages on the Chad-Sudan border.

The parents of several children said they had been duped by the Zoe's Ark workers into giving up their infants with the promise of schooling for them in east Chad -- but that there had never been any mention of taking them away to France. (Writing by Pascal Fletcher and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

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