Thousands of women protest peace deal for Ivory Coast outside French Embassy

THOUSANDS of Ivorian women — waving tree branches and singing, with their faces painted — surrounded the French Embassy yesterday to protest a French-brokered peace accord.

Female leaders from the ruling party and its allies accused French President Jacques Chirac of forcing the agreement on Ivory Coast’s government. They called for the deal to be abandoned or re-negotiated with rebels who captured half of the country since a failed coup last September.

“Chirac, liar,” about 8,000 women chanted as they filled two streets outside the embassy in Abidjan's business district.

“The accord is null and void,” said Marie-Odette Lorougnon, president of the women’s league of the governing Ivorian Popular Front party.

“We are a sovereign nation that cannot be pushed around by France. We won’t be forced to give in to the rebels.”

France, Ivory Coast’s former colonial ruler, reiterated calls yesterday for President Laurent Gbagbo to respect terms of the deal, under which rebels and the government would share power until new elections.

“France solemnly asks President Gbagbo to resolutely commit himself to the path of reconciliation,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in Paris.

Ivory Coast’s commercial capital has seen more than a week of anti-French protests, many of them violent, against the accord. Riots and demonstrations have shut down the West African economic hub and sent hundreds of Westerners fleeing.

This demonstration was festive, with mainly young and middle-aged women singing and dancing to the samba-like rhythms of Ivorian zouglou music pouring from speakers set up outside the embassy gates.

At one point, protesters greeted Western journalists by chanting: “We don’t hate French. It’s the government of France we hate.”

Ble Goude, the influential youth leader who has helped galvanise more than a week of loyalist protests, exhorted the crowd to “stay in the streets” until the January 24 peace accord has been torn up. France “has put the rebels in our government,” said Goude, guarded by plain-clothed bodyguards carrying automatic rifles.

Government supporters oppose the deal because they say it gives too many concessions to rebels.

Mr Gbagbo, who at first showed signs of supporting the deal, has wavered, saying the rebels’ contentious claims that the accord granted them control over the interior and defence ministries were only “propositions.”

The government insists it never signed that part of the deal.

A widely anticipated speech by the president on national television to clarify his position has been repeatedly postponed.