The civil war in the Ivory Coast has become a trap for some 4,000 French troops in a demilitarized zone that separates rebel forces in the northeast from the government army in the southwest.

French soldiers and irregular troops loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo have engaged in several skirmishes along this "line of trust" in recent days.

Ivorian demonstrators clashed with French soldiers Nov. 29 when they tried to take rebel stronghold Bouake. The next day senior military officers broadcast a message on television demanding the departure of French troops from the Ivory Coast. They called for a new offensive against the rebels.

"Young patriots" loyal to Gbagbo have been demonstrating all week outside French military installations in the port city Abidjan, the economic capital of the country. They want French troops out.

"France is locked in the Ivorian trap," says Isabelle Lasserre, diplomatic analyst with the French daily Le Figaro.

French troops have on the other hand also been facing attacks from the rebels. Two French soldiers were killed in a rebel ambush along the demilitarized zone in September.

French civilians are also being targeted. An Ivorian soldier killed French journalist Jean Hélène Oct. 22 outside the police headquarters in Abidjan. French settlers have been facing harassment since the outbreak of the civil war in September last year.

French soldiers have been stationed in the Ivory Coast since December 2002 to maintain a precarious cease-fire between the army (also known as FANCI) and the rebels trying to oust Gbagbo.

"This operation has proven extremely fragile," says Lasserre.

French military intervention in the Ivory Coast sanctioned by the United Nations last spring as a peacekeeping operation aimed at first to support the government and block the rebel advance on Abidjan and capital Yamoussoukro.

"Without French military intervention the rebels would easily have overrun Gbagbo's army," Lasserre says.

France dug out a 1965 military cooperation agreement with its former colony to justify its intervention in the conflict. The agreement binds the French army to support the Ivory Coast against foreign aggression. The Ivory Coast became free from French rule in 1960.

In diplomatic moves the French government unofficially endorsed the rebels' demand to abolish legislation that bars immigrants from neighboring countries from political participation and access to land.

Gbagbo agreed in January to abolish this legislation under French pressure. The agreement called also for disarmament of both rebels and government troops.

The agreement has remained dead letter. Rebels decided in September not to participate in the government.

Far from disarming, both sides, and especially the FANCI are acquiring more weapons. The country remains split. Only the presence of the French military is preventing open war.

Gbagbo now says the agreement was a bad solution. "It is based on a wrong analysis of the civil war's origins," Gbagbo told Le Figaro in an interview Dec. 2.

Gbagbo says neighboring Burkina Faso and Liberia are behind the rebellion. English speaking mercenaries with links in those countries are reported to have participated in the rebellion.

Some of the main rebel leaders are former Ivorian military officers allied to opposition leaders who were banned from the elections of late 2000.

The Ivory Coast was a prosperous state until 1999 when president Henri Konan Bedié was overthrown in a military coup, the first in the country.

Military leader Robert Guei ordered elections in late 2000, but excluded opposition leader Alassane Ouattara. Popular protest forced Guei to step aside. That brought runner-up Laurent Gbagbo to power. Guei was lynched by Gbagbo's followers in the early days of the civil war.

Gbagbo justifies the anger against the French. "The Ivorian people and army have had enough of this impasse," Gbagbo told Le Figaro. "The military tells me listen Laurent, now we have enough weapons, let's finish the war."

The besieged leader also justified the killing of journalist Jean Hélène. "I myself don't love Radio France International (the French state broadcasting service Hélène worked for) for the simple reason that it doesn't love me either."

Gbagbo said he will visit France mid-December "to thank President Jacques Chirac for his support to the Ivory Coast during the crisis, but also to remind him that the crisis is not over, and that we continue to need French aid."

Inter Press Service