By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - European peacekeepers will deploy in eastern Chad in February to secure the area near Sudan's Darfur but will not prop up Chad's president against armed rebels, France's foreign minister said on Friday.

Rebel groups in eastern Chad have threatened to attack the European force if it interferes with their military campaign to topple President Idriss Deby or sides with his forces in a rumbling insurgency.

Rebels have also questioned the force's neutrality, given that around half of it will be from France, which has ground troops and war planes based in Chad under a military treaty.

"This operation is a very simple operation which does not support President Deby," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said during a visit to Democratic Republic of Congo.

The European force aims to protect some 400,000 displaced people in eastern Chad, including many whose villages have been destroyed by the mounted Janjaweed militia from across the Sudanese border in Darfur, Kouchner told reporters.

"The EUFOR operation is meant to secure the zone, and the major task is development and the reconstruction of the villages," he said.

The force's deployment has been repeatedly delayed by a shortage of equipment, including helicopters, but Kouchner said it was expected to start in February, with the first troops arriving within the next two weeks.

Over the border, Sudanese government troops and allied Janjaweed militia fighters are pitted against Darfur rebel groups in a 5-year-old conflict that experts estimate has killed 200,000 people and forced 2.5 million from their homes.

Sudan's government says the death toll is much lower.

The conflict has fuelled violence in neighbouring parts of Chad and Central African Republic, where a small number of the 3,500 or more EU peacekeepers will be sent.

Chad and Sudan accuse each other of fomenting rebellion in each others' territory.

Kouchner is due to visit Congo's eastern neighbour Rwanda at the weekend to help rebuild relations between Paris and Kigali.

Rwanda broke off diplomatic relations with Paris more than a year ago to protest a French judge's call for Rwandan President Paul Kagame to stand trial over the death of his predecessor in 1994, which helped trigger the genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. (Editing by Alistair Thomson and Michael Winfrey)

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