ABIDJAN -- President Laurent Gbagbo returned overnight to Ivory Coast after an African summit in Paris where he approved a peace deal that sparked massive anti-French protests in the country already split by civil war. Gbagbo returned from a four-day trip to France only to be confronted with protesting "young patriots" convinced he was forced by former colonial power France to agree to a deal granting cabinet posts to the leaders of rebel factions that control northern and western regions.
Tens of thousands of protesters besieged the French embassy in the downtown plateau neighborhood of Abijdan for several hours Sunday, briefly setting the visa section alight.
They attacked French-owned businesses including the main office of flagship carrier Air France, several offices of the French mobile telephone firm Orange and demonstrated in front of a French military garrison near the airport in Abidjan, the country's economic hub.
Gbagbo yielded Saturday to heavy pressure from France and agreed to share power with a "national reconciliation" government headed by "consensus" Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, a neutral figure who already served as premier in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer.
The main rebel Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI), which gained control of half the country in an uprising last September, will hold the key defense and interior ministries.
The opposition will get crucial portfolios such as foreign affairs and justice in a bid to end the ruinous four-month war, while Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front will hold the finance and energy ministries.
Gbagbo, whose departure from Paris was pushed up to respond to the violent anti-French protests, arrived at an airstrip outside Abidjan aboard a French military aircraft accompanied by France's ambassador to Ivory Coast, Gildas le Lidec.
French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said France would not add to an estimated 2,500 troops already on the ground in its former colony to protect its nationals and other foreigners and enforce a shaky truce between rebels and government troops. "The contingent ... is enough for the missions," she told Europe 1 Radio, adding their deployment "would be prolonged as long the situation requires it." "The new government must be established by the Ivorians -- it's their responsibility to ensure that it is put in place."
The president was welcomed home by senior administration members including Charles Ble Goude, the firebrand leader of the pro-Gbagbo Young Patriots Movement that organized the weekend protests in the capital.
A 100-vehicle convoy then headed for the presidential residence, a witness said, while Lidec was whisked to his residence aboard a French Army helicopter.
Weekend demonstrations in Abidjan also included attacks on the French cultural institute and two French schools elsewhere in the city, where traffic was hindered by massive roadblocks of burning tyres.
Plateau, home to the presidential offices as well as important government buildings and several embassies, became a riot zone as protesters armed with sticks, machetes and makeshift weapons set bonfires outside the French Embassy and lobbed burning tyres and metal objects inside the compound.
French soldiers, reinforced by four teams of helicopters, fired stun grenades to disperse the throngs outside the embassy, who also damaged a closed-circuit camera mounted on the outer wall.
The embassy of Ivory Coast's northern neighbor Burkina Faso, accused by Abidjan of masterminding the unrest, was partially burnt by the demonstrators, who ransacked the offices inside and ripped up files.
Gbagbo made several appeals for calm from Paris, before his early return to the crisis-torn West African nation.
"A crisis that lasts four months brings a heavy toll," he said over Ivorian television from Paris. "So to get out of it mutual concessions are necessary, and I have made them." Rebels launched an uprising in Abidjan, the economic hub, and other towns last September. While failing to take over Abidjan they quickly gained control of half the country. (AFP)
