ABIDJAN, Nov 8 (AFP) - French troops fired shots in the air Monday to disperse protesters outside a hotel where a crisis meeting was set to address a sudden escalation in the country's civil war and a surge in anti-French sentiment.
At Abidjan's luxury Hotel Ivoire, a kilometer (half a mile) from the home of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo, French troops in armored vehicles faced off against thousands of demonstrators who had been urged into the streets by national radio.
The hotel was to host a major meeting Monday on the crisis sparked when nine French peacekeepers were killed in a government air raid and French forces responded by wiping out the west African country's air power.
This unleashed a spree of violence overnight Saturday, when mobs assaulted and looted French people and property in Abidjan, the economic capital of the former French colony and home to most of the 14,000 French nationals living in the country.
The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) said dozens of people were taken to hospital with injuries.
The air strike Saturday, which also killed an American civilian, followed three days of government air raids on Korhogo and Bouake, key northern strongholds of rebels whose uprising in September 2002 plunged Ivory Coast into civil war.
The raids were the most serious violation yet of a ceasefire and buffer zone ratified by a peace accord signed in January 2003.
Some 6,200 UN peacekeepers and 4,000 French troops patrol the zone that separates the rebel north from the government south.
French military spokesman Colonel Henry Aussavy told AFP the crisis meeting would be attended by officials including Ivorian armed forces chief General Mathias Doue and firebrand parliamentary speaker Mamadou Koulibaly.
Koulibaly had warned Sunday that France faced a "long, hard war" comparable to Vietnam, with its nationals risking death at the hands of the "patriot" mob -- diehard backers of Gbagbo.
Gbagbo, however, in his first appearance since the strikes began, urged calm on Sunday, while defending air assaults as necessary to liberate the country from the rebels and to reunite it.
"Our goal is to disarm the rebels and restore the integrity of our country," he said.
Following the strike on the French base Saturday, French President Jacques Chirac immediately ordered the destruction of two Ivorian jets and at least three attack helicopters, effectively eliminating the Ivorian air force.
"I want to reassure our compatriots in Ivory Coast that all is being done to guarantee their security," Chirac said Monday as the bodies of the nine French soldiers were on their way home.
"That is the reason for and the sole objective of the actions undertaken by our armed forces."
At least three people were killed when French troops tried to prevent thousands of Gbagbo partisans from marching on Abidjan's airport in a bid to wrest it from French forces holding it since Saturday.
French armed forces chief General Henri Bentegeat acknowledged that some people were likely wounded or killed, but insisted his troops had reacted with "calm and extreme restraint."
"If they had not, there would have been hundreds of dead in Ivory Coast," he told French television.
France has dispatched reinforcements to its Operation Unicorn force, bringing the number of French military in Ivory Coast to 5,300. Troops from the northern town of Korhogo on the border with Burkina Faso were also on their way to Abidjan by road, French Captain Jean-Pierre Lecoq told AFP.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who was mandated Sunday by the African Union to lead a mediating mission to Abidjan, joined worried African neighbors Algeria, Senegal and Mali in calling for an end to hostilities.
Mbeki may arrive as soon as Tuesday in Abidjan, his spokesman said in Johannesburg.
The UN Security Council was expected to meet Monday to discuss a French proposal for an arms embargo on Ivory Coast as well as sanctions to include the freezing of assets and a targeted travel ban.
Prices for cocoa, of which Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer, soared to a three-month high Monday on London's futures market.

11/08/2004 14:00 GMT - AFP