FRANCE SAYS RAIDS ON IRAQ EXCEED UN MANDATE

* France accused the United States yesterday of going beyond United Nations resolutions in Sunday's cruise missile attack on a factory in a Baghdad suburb.

French government spokesman Louis Mermaz told reporters that Foreign Minister Roland Dumas had briefed the Cabinet on "the reasons for France's non-participation in the military action against the Baghdad suburbs, considering that it exceeded the Security Council resolution."

"The arrival of a new president in the White House should open a new phase in this crisis with Iraq," he quoted Mr. Dumas as saying. "This new phase could lead to an easing of tensions on the double condition that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein agrees to implement Security Council resolutions without twisting and does not take advantage of this respite to carry out provocations of the kind that led to the allied reaction."

France joined the US and Britain in two air strikes against Iraqi missile batteries after Baghdad moved anti-aircraft missiles south of the 32nd parallel in defiance of a coalition- imposed no-fly zone.