French and British officials said they have resolved earlier differences over where to draw the line against the Bosnian Serbs, and now agree that the Muslim enclave of Gorazde should be preserved. There remains some disagreement, however, about how to save Gorazde, a U.N.-designated safe area.

But both governments, officials said, are intent on winning assurances from the Clinton administration that it will live up to earlier commitments to support their forces with air and logistical backingor come to their rescue if they need to be evacuated.

Senior French officials said that Paris is willing to accommodate British concerns about getting drawn into fighting situations with the Bosnian Serbs. The debate, these officials said, now centers on how best to fortify Gorazde, where 300 U.N. troops, mostly British, are holed up.

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The French said they are prepared to send up to 1,000 of their troops into the enclave, down from the 3,000 French and British soldiers suggested by Paris last week. But they insisted that only heavy American Chinook helicopters have the capacity to ferry their troops into the area. The Clinton administration and congressional leaders, however, are extremely wary of that task.

Senior French officials said they intend to deliver a blunt message to President Clinton:Either you provide up to 100 helicopters to help transport French reinforcements to Gorazde, or you should prepare to send 25,000 American soldiers to help extricate all U.N. peacekeepers from Bosnia.

A senior adviser to French President Jacques Chirac said it is necessary to place the Americans squarely in front of their responsibilities and to make it clear that unless the Serb offensive against the enclaves is stopped now, the United States will ultimately become more deeply engaged once the arms embargo is lifted, U.N. troops pull out and the Serbs try to slaughter the Muslims before they get more weapons.

British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind agreed that Paris and London are working very closely together on a common view, but officials in London said some differences remain between the two European allies. Last week, Britain resisted Chirac’s call for tough military action against the Serbs.

Chirac spoke out after Srebrenica, one of six U.N.-designated safe areasenclaves where Bosnian Muslims were supposed to be protected by U.N. forcesfell to Bosnian Serb forces July 11, despite the presence of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers, and the Serbs swiftly attacked Zepa, a nearby enclave thinly defended by Ukrainians. Although Chirac first suggested joint military action to recover Srebrenica, French proposals have been shaved back since then to the idea of letting Zepa fall but reinforcing Gorazde, the other of three enclaves in eastern Bosnia.

Rifkind’s mission is designed to secure a consensus with the United States before a Friday meeting in London of foreign and defense ministers from the five powers that form the contact group working to find a solution to Bosnia’s 40-month-old war:the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Russia. Failure to reach agreement on a new course of action could trigger activation of plans to withdraw the 22,500-man U.N. mission in Bosnia, French officials said.

Any refusal by the Clinton administration to live up to its promises to bail out the allies, French and British officials said, would call into question the basis of the Atlantic alliance and the future existence of NATO.

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Senior officials in London, Paris and Bonn said there is mounting exasperation among European governments with Washington’s refusal to make hard decisions over Bosnia and live up to its traditional role as leader of the Atlantic alliance. When asked recently whether American reluctance to send troops into Bosnia to serve with French and British allies is undermining U.S. claims on leadership, Chirac responded curtly:There is no leader of the Atlantic alliance.