ABIDJAN (AFP) - Top Ivory Coast officials appealed for calm, hoping to quell the latest unrest in the divided west African state that left at least 13 dead and hundreds injured in weekend clashes.
The UN Security Council, meanwhile, was expected to vote on a French proposal for an arms embargo against Ivory Coast, which has been split between rebel and government zones since a failed coup in September 2002 sparked a civil war.
The world`s top cocoa producer has been rocked by unrest since Thursday, when Ivorian air strikes strafed the rebel strongholds of Bouake and Korhogo in what President Laurent Gbagbo called an operation to "liberate and reunite the country."
But Ivorian parliamentary speaker Mamadou Koulibaly, who had stoked xenophobic fires at the weekend after French forces wiped out the Ivorian air force in retaliation for a government air strike that killed nine French soldiers, said Monday: "We are proceeding towards calm so as to resume economic activity."
On Sunday, Koulibaly had warned that France faced a "long, hard war" comparable to Vietnam, its nationals risking death at the hands of the "patriot" mob -- diehard Gbagbo supporters.
On Monday he conceded: "We agree that the French military must be allowed to evacuate their nationals" -- even though French officials have ruled out the immediate evacuation of the some 14,000 French nationals living in the former French colony, most of them in the main city Abidjan.
The remarks follow a crisis meeting between French and Ivorian officials including Koulibaly and Ivorian armed forces chief General Mathias Doue at Abidjan`s luxury Hotel Ivoire.
Earlier, French troops in armored vehicles fired warning shots to disperse thousands of demonstrators who had gathered outside the venue at the urging of national radio.
The protesters had been urged to form a human chain to protect Gbagbo, whose home is a kilometer (half a mile) from the hotel.
French General Henri Poncet emerged from the meeting saying: "Our objective is to reassure the expatriate community and to secure residents in the Ivorian economic capital from being robbed or injured," adding: "We have no intention of overthrowing President Gbagbo."
After the raid on Saturday hit a French military base in the central town of Bouake, killing the nine French troops and a US civilian, French forces responded by destroying Ivory Coast`s aerial fleet and seizing control of the international airport, unleashing two days of xenophobic violence in Abidjan.
France has reinforced its 4,000-strong Operation Unicorn with an additional 700 troops as Abidjan turned into a cauldron of anti-European sentiment.
Dozens of Europeans told AFP of being pulled from their cars and beaten, their watches and jewellery stolen in 48 hours of unrest that silenced the city and sent four French schools up in smoke.
Others estimate that one in four homes occupied by Europeans was vandalized.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, citing hospital officials in Abidjan, said Monday that more than 400 people were injured in the violence, including some with wounds from heavy weapons.
"The number of dead remains approximate but we fear that it will also be high," the ICRC said from Geneva.
Gbagbo appealed for calm in a televised address late Sunday, but defended his decision to order the raids. "We can no longer be held hostage by a rebellion that knows not what it wants."
But rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate told AFP from Bouake: "Only the removal of Laurent Gbagbo from power will restore calm to political business, allow the transition to succeed and the peace accord to be implemented."
South African President Thabo Mbeki, due to arrive Wednesday in Abidjan at the head of an African Union delegation, joined worried African neighbors Algeria, Senegal and Mali in calling for an end to hostilities.
The European Union, United States and other development partners have also expressed concern. Spain has begun making arrangements to evacuate its nationals, while commercial flights from Paris, Nairobi, Brussels and Johannesburg have all been suspended.
Prices for cocoa soared to a three-month high Monday on London`s futures market.

11/08/2004 - 18:14 GMT - AFP