Skip to main content

France says ambassador can stay in Ivory Coast

By the CNN Wire Staff
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: The United Nations, France and others recognize Alassane Ouattara's appointees
  • Self-declared president cancels diplomatic accreditation of French ambassador
  • France says he is not the rightful leader of the African country

(CNN) -- France said Saturday it would not recognize the decision by Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo to cancel the diplomatic accreditation of French Ambassador Jean-Marc Simon.

Like many other countries and the United Nations, France does not recognize Gbagbo's government, saying instead that Alassane Ouattara fairly won a contentious November election.

"The positions and statement allegedly made on behalf of Ivory Coast by those who do not draw the consequences of the results of the presidential election are considered illegal and illegitimate by France," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Ahoua Don Melo, a Gbagbo spokesman, said on national television that the move to cancel the accreditation was in retaliation for France's earlier decision to accept the credentials of an ambassador appointed by Ouattara.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told reporters in Paris last year that only ambassadors sent with the approval of Ouattara would be recognized by European Union countries.

The United Nations has similarly accepted the credentials of Youssoufu Bamba, the U.N. ambassador appointed by Ouattara.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to send 2,000 additional troops to Ivory Coast, bringing the total mission there to more than 11,000 troops and police.

The political standoff in the country has raised fears of a renewal of the bloodshed suffered after a civil war broke out in 2002.

The African Union on Wednesday blamed Gbagbo for the failure of talks so far to resolve the crisis in the cocoa-producing West African nation.

An independent electoral commission declared Ouattara the winner of the country's presidential election in November, but Gbagbo, the incumbent, has refused to step aside.