France brokers truce

last updated 8 January 2015

Abidjan, Ivory Coast

All the warring parties in the Ivory Coast agreed this week to cease fire and meet for talks in France. The world’s leading cocoa producer has been in turmoil since last September, when one faction attempted a coup. In the following months, various rebel groups attempted to take over the cocoa fields, and more than half a million people had to flee their homes. France, which has strong business ties to its former colony as well as 20,000 citizens there, has sent in 2,500 troops, in its biggest African intervention in decades. It hopes to avert a full-scale civil war, which could create millions of refugees. “France accepts its responsibilities,” said Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, and is committed to “neither interference nor indifference.”