I Coast asks French to return

2004-11-18 10:01

Paris - Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo called, in a radio interview aired on Thursday, for French businessmen to return to Ivory Coast, the divided West African state hit recently by anti-French and anti-Westerner violence.

"The French schools have been burnt down in Abidjan, therefore I perfectly understand that parents, wanting their children to have a normal school year, have gone," said Gbagbo. "I would have done the same thing," he added.

"But as for the others, the businessmen, I don't just ask them to return, I think that the interest is reciprocated on their part," he said

"What would you expect them to do today in France when they have invested their whole life in Ivory Coast?" he added in the interview with radio France Info. - AFP

- SAPA