MARSEILLE, France, Nov 13 (AFP) - President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal on Saturday warned that Ivory Coast could be engulfed in chaos if French troops leave the west African country.
If French troops, which have been mandated by the United Nations to help separate warring government and rebel sides, "leave today it would be eternal chaos", Wade said on the sidelines of a debate about Africa.
Senegal is overseeing west African peacekeeping forces in the country and has a large number of troops there.
"I believe it would be wise if France could pursue its mission in Ivory Coast," said Wade.
"As far as Ivory Coast is concerned I think that French troops should stay there until political power has been established through elections in which Ivorians choose their true representatives," he told the press.
The Senegalese leader said in an interview published Saturday that France's military presence in Ivory Coast was an indispensable factor in preventing massacres.
That presence has been violently challenged in the past week by forces loyal to Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo.
French troops in the Ivory Coast are predominantly members of the 4,000-member Unicorn Force, but France also has a garrison in Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan, and has sent in fresh troops to protect foreigners after xenophobic violence erupted last weekend.
Wade said the pacts establishing a French military presence in several African countries had been freely agreed by independent countries, and to break them would risk undermining societies.
"I'm convinced that if the Ivorian authorities asked the French to leave, the French would leave without problems. So there is no need for violence."
He said that French troops had been fired upon "when they came to help restore peace, and attacking French people at their homes is absolutely inadmissible and unacceptable."
Noting that the situation in Ivory Coast was very serious, he recalled that the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) had blamed Gbagbo for breaking an agreed ceasefire with the rebel New Forces in the north.
Wade said ECOWAS had also condemned the attack one week ago by government aircraft on a French army camp in which nine French troops and and a US civilian were killed and about 30 injured.
Wade's concern was not merely theoretical. A strong minority of Senegalese lives in the Ivory Coast, and is potentially threatened by the growing xenophobia among Gbabgo's supporters.
He recommended the setting up of a transition government of technocrats that would have the task of balancing the economy and establishing an electoral register with international help. Ivorians are supposed to elect a new president next year.
A transitional period, he said, would give political forces in Ivory Coast breathing space in which to create a working majority.
"If the system remains the way it is, I fear that President Gbagbo, isolated as he is, will not be able to do anything. He must react while there is still time."
Wade was scheduled Sunday to attend a regional summit meeting on the crisis in Abuja, Nigeria.
11/13/2004 19:14 GMT - AFP