France will send 450 more troops to the Ivory Coast to boost its force there trying to protect French citizens and enforce a truce between rebel groups and the government, the French defence ministry said today.
The reinforcements will bring French troop strength in Ivory Coast to over 3,000 soldiers and police, the ministry said.
France, former colonial power in the world's largest cocoa producing country, has had to step up its security measures in the commercial capital of Abidjan after protests broke out against a French-backed peace plan worked out in Paris. About 12,000 French citizens are currently in Ivory Coast, down from 20,000 last September when a bloody civil war erupted between rebel groups in the north and west and forces loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo.
France has asked non-essential French residents there to leave Ivory Coast but has not organised an evacuation.