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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Frenchies flee Ivory Coast |
| 2003-01-30 |
| Hundreds of French nationals have left Ivory Coast on charter planes as a peace deal appears to be on the verge of collapse. Many more of the 20,000 French nationals in Ivory Coast are planning to leave after four days of anti-French protests earlier this week. French nationals queuing for tickets outside the Air France offices in Abidjan say they fear this is the calm before the storm. "I saw a sign that said 'Kill the French' - and that's worrying," said Jean-Pierre Vivet, an aid worker from Paris. Especially if you're French... Air France suspended flights to and from Abidjan during the protests and some large French-owned companies chartered planes to fly out 264 relatives of their employees on Wednesday night. But Air France now says it will lay on extra large planes for Friday's flights. The French economic mission in Abidjan says that an estimated 500 people have left. The Frenchies may have been acting unilaterally, but their forces were doing what needed to be done. True to form, the politicos behind them were so far behind them as to be out of sight. They sold the elected government out, and now their citizens are taking the heat for it. It's nice to see the pro-American slogans, but it'd be better to see peace and stability in what was once a peaceful and stable corner of Africa — God knows there are few enough of them. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |