ABIDJAN - More than 1,000 stone-throwing protesters besieged Abidjan airport on Friday to prevent the arrival of Ivory Coast's new Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, whose appointment has been agreed under a French-brokered peace deal.

French and Ivorian forces were deployed against them with armored vehicles. A French army officer said one soldier had been hit by a stone.

Friday's demonstration was the biggest in Ivory Coast's main city since four days of riots were triggered on Saturday by news of the power-sharing peace deal agreed in France, which protesters said President Laurent Gbagbo was forced to sign.

The deal was an attempt to halt a four-month war that has left hundreds dead in the world's largest cocoa producer.

Protesters at the airport said that as well as stopping the arrival of Diarra, who was in Senegal and not expected to arrive until much later, they were there to harass hundreds of French citizens leaving because of the riots.

West African leaders were gathering in Dakar on Friday to hear out Ivory Coast's rebels and government and see if they can salvage the peace accord, which has been challenged by the army, youth protesters, several political parties and local chiefs.

After the summit, Diarra is due to set off for Abidjan to try to assemble a coalition government meant to reunite the country as a step to halting the violence.

Gbagbo's supporters say the deal was foisted on Ivory Coast by former colonial ruler France and gives too much power to the rebels who failed to seize power in a September 19 coup and then began the war that has split the once-stable country on ethnic lines.