Hard-liners urged loyalist mobs on to more violence today, after a day of mayhem in which French and Ivory Coast forces battled in the air and on the ground and machete-waving throngs hunted down French citizens in the largest city.

Pro-government mobs laid siege to the main French military base in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan today, demanding that peacekeepers withdraw from the country and allow fighting to resume in its civil war.