France has scornfully rejected a claim by Ivory Coast's president and its top Roman Catholic cleric that French troops beheaded young protesters there.
Officials condemned President Laurent Gbagbo's "disinformation" and urged him to stop fuelling anti-French hatred.

Cardinal Bernard Agre said last week he had seen young girls decapitated by the French army - a charge President Gbagbo said he believed to be true.

The civil war reignited on 4 November, when Ivorian forces attacked rebels.

'Outrageous claims'

French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said the "outrageousness" of the claims "strips them of any credibility".

"These charges amount to disinformation similar to President Gbagbo's doubts about the reality of the French military victims in Bouake," she told France-Inter radio.


PEACE UNRAVELS
29 Sept: Parliament fails to meet deadline for political reforms
15 Oct: Rebels ignore deadline for disarmament
28 Oct: Rebels withdraw from unity government
4 Nov: Government aircraft begin air strikes on rebel-held territory
6 Nov: Air strike kills nine French soldiers; France destroys Ivorian planes
7 Nov: Gbagbo supporters demonstrate against the French in Abidjan; UN condemns Ivorian attacks
8,9 Nov: Anti-French rioting
10 Nov: French begin evacuating civilians
15 Nov: UN sanctions imposed


Q&A: Renewed crisis
Will embargo bring peace?

There are currently 4,000 French troops in Ivory Coast trying to enforce a ceasefire between the rebels in the north and the government-controlled south.

Tensions have been running high between the French and the Ivorians, after French forces destroyed most of the Ivorian air force in retaliation for an air raid which killed nine of its peacekeepers.

Government supporters have taken to the streets to protest against the French military action.

Cardinal Agre alleged some of the protesters had been beheaded, in an interview with Vatican Radio last week.

"I've just come back from the hospitals, it's unbearable, these young girls decapitated by the French army, these people even lying on the floor," he said.

President Gbagbo said in a French internet forum on Saturday that he believed the beheading charge to be true.

But he admitted he had not visited morgues as Cardinal Agre had done.


Paris has called on Gbagbo to stop stoking anti-French sentiment
"This testimony by the prelate was reported by all the people who were present at the siege of the Hotel Ivoire by the French army and all those who were in the hospitals," he told the forum organised by Le Nouvel Observateur newspaper.

"I wasn't in the hospitals but everyone who went there said it. We can assume this testimony repeated by several people is true."


On 6 November the Ivorian air force killed nine French peacekeepers while attacking the rebel stronghold of Bouake in the north of the country.

Mr Gbagbo suggested that, as he had not seen the bodies of the French soldiers, they may not exist.

Last week he called for the French business community who fled the unrest to return to the country.

He said French and Ivorian "mutual interests" were currently at stake.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4030125.stm

Shame there is no oil involved, then good old Uncle Sam would come to the rescue.

Yours cynically,

Barmy Army.

:beer:

Observation: It's outrageous. Conclusion: We haven't done it.

Another nice example of exceptionalism.

You know what? This kind of answet from a ranking civil officer actually makes the whole thing even more probable in my eyes. With that kind of blind belief in own moral superiority, they could do anything to anyone because, you know, they are superior.

It's kinda nice to see some random news article slamming someone who isn't American. I would comment, as others have (in reference to the US and Abu Ghraib among other things), that this is representative of the entirety of the French population, but it's likely, as in the US's case, to be the actions of a militant and maddened few.

Off-topic, but can you actually produce a quote where someone here said that the actions of soldiers in Abu Graib are representative of the entirety of the American population? Because I must have missed that one. It would have been sanctioned as a violation of the AoDA rules if anyone actually wrote that. So please either produce a link to the post you are referring to, or don't throw around such baseless accusations.

Kinda nice since they actually invented the process of guillotine. Helps spare a lot of agony... But I guess they don't have guillotines over there. Oh well...