PARIS (AFP) - The Ivory Coast military resumed attacks on positions held by former rebels at around 1130 GMT, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on a French radio station.
The "bombing resumed this morning, I can confirm this to you, at 12:30 (French time)," Alliot-Marie told France Inter on Friday.
France has troops patrolling ceasefire lines alongside UN peacekeepers in the divided west African country, where military and political violence between government and opposition forces broke out Thursday.
On Thursday, military aircraft attacked strongholds of the ex-rebel New Forces (NF) at Bouake in central Ivory Coast and Korhogo in the north, leading NF officials to describe the country`s shaky peace pact as "defunct".
"This really is an extremely worrying situation," Alliot-Marie said.
With overnight arson attacks on opposition party buildings in Abidjan and increasingly belligerent language from both sides in the divided country, regional leaders have scrambled to cool down the situation.
FN officials who were Thursday in Togo, whose President Gnassingbe Eyadema is regional mediator in the two-year-old conflict, insisted after the initial air raids that they remained determined to prevent a slide back into war.
11/05/2004 - 13:07 GMT - AFP