Up to 1,000 stone-throwing youths have blockaded Abidjan airport as French nationals tried to leave, fearing renewed hostilities in Ivory Coast.
A French soldier was injured in the protests, which came as a new transitional prime minister was due to arrive in Ivory Coast.
[...]
French troops have intervened and one soldier was injured in the face by a stone. A French tank is stationed at the airport entrance.
[I didn't know the Froggies had tanks?!?--J.T.]
Supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo accuse former colonial power France of forcing him to share power with rebels at peace talks held in Paris last week.
The man named in the peace deal as the new prime minister, Seydou Elimane Diarra, was due to arrive in Abidjan on Friday.
[...]
Diarra is the prime minister of the French," the protesters screamed and burnt the French flag. [Isn't this great, seeing the old tricouleur getting torched instead of our Stars and Stripes for a change?--Jen]
"Go home and don't come back," the protestors screamed at families seated next to piles of luggage.
fter the deal was signed last weekend, Mr Gbagbo's supporters staged four days of anti-French protests, prompting some French nationals to start leaving on Wednesday.
The conflict has split the world's largest cocoa producer along ethnic and religious lines.
The rebels control the largely Muslim north, while the mainly Christian south, including Abidjan, remains in government hands.
Some 2,500 French troops are monitoring a ceasefire line across the middle of the country.
They were originally sent to protect the 16,000 French nationals in Ivory Coast.
This just hasn't been France's week.
Heh-heh-heh.
And while France neither sought nor received UN "approval" for them to move their troops in here
, who do you think sat with Jacques Chirac in Paris when they were brokering these wretched, Muslim "rebel"-friendly Ivory Coast "peace talks?"
, who gave the whole mess his blessing.
