Frightened French fire on factions

The French, once again acting unilaterally, killed 7 and wounded 200 during the fourth day of fighting in the Ivory Coast.

Abidjan, Ivory Coast - French forces opened fire on Tuesday as thousands of angry loyalists massed outside an evacuation post for foreigners, witnesses said, and a hospital reported seven people killed and 200 wounded in a fourth day of chaotic violence pitting France against its former prize colony.

The bloodletting, overshadowing the launch of an African peace mission here, erupted at a one-time luxury hotel that French forces have commandeered as an rallying post for 1 300 French and other foreigners rescued from anti-French rampages across the largest city, Abidjan.

An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of three demonstrators outside a hospital, their bodies draped in Ivorian flags.

The chaos in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer and West Africa's former economic powerhouse, broke out on Saturday when Ivory Coast warplanes killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker in an air strike on the rebel-held north.

France wiped out the nation's air force on the tarmac in retaliation, sparking massive anti-French rampages by mobs of thousands in the fiercely nationalist south.

Perhaps we could take a cue from the French when it comes to dealing with protestors in our own country? Hmmmm?