CAIRO — Egypt’s finance minister resigned Tuesday in protest over the killing of two dozen unarmed Coptic Christian protesters by the security forces, as reverberations from the outburst of violence two days ago continued to shake Egypt’s interim government.

The finance minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, who also held the title of deputy prime minister, said in an interview on a privately owned television network that “the government failed in its main responsibility, which is to provide security, and it should at least acknowledge its failure to give this issue the effort it needed and apologize.”

Mr. Beblawi’s resignation, after just three months on the job, is the latest blow to Egypt’s economy at a time when it is suffering from labor unrest and a loss of tourist revenue after the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak eight months ago.

Mr. Beblawi’s departure follows growing calls for a broader shake-up of the military-led government, and it was the first indication that public anger over the killings — the most severe violence since the revolution and a stark departure from the military’s usually hands-off approach to public protests — had penetrated the highest levels of the government.