French Foreign Legion Draws Line in Ivory Coast

French Foreign Legion soldiers crouch behind logs and sandbags, training their anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers and heavy machine guns west -- into rebel territory.

Nearby is Ivory Coast’s Sassandra River: Rebels hoping to advance on the skyscraper-lined commercial capital, Abidjan, must first make it across this silvery, natural barrier.

The French forces are determined to make sure that doesn’t happen.

With hundreds of troops here and more on the way, France’s intervention in the swiftly growing Ivory Coast war marks its biggest role in years in its former African colonial empire.

French troops this fall took the back-seat role of enforcing a cease-fire but stepped up their involvement when fighting between rebels and government forces resumed with greater force.

Ivorian rebels, who demand the president’s resignation and new elections, are emboldened by their success in recent weeks in the west, capped by their seizure of the strategic city of Man.

Now, rebels in the west say they want to capture Abidjan -- and control the nation -- something that West African leaders and others eager to preserve stability in the region hope to prevent.

Ivory Coast’s own forces retreated when rebels took Man, a main western city with 135,000 residents.

And as the dusty convoys of weary government troops pulled out, the Foreign Legion moved in. Piling up bunkers, they set up a checkpoint 55 miles south of the fallen city.

“Between what we have here, and the river, they will not pass,” vowed Col. Emmanuel Maurin, commander of the French in the west.

Potentially, the French will make the difference in resolving the war in Ivory Coast, despite having sworn off their role as the policeman of Africa in the late 1990s.

At that time, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin ushered in what was called the “ni-ni” -- or neither-neither -- policy for Africa: neither indifference, nor interference. He also made cuts to streamline the armed forces.

As coups and coup attempts roiled countries from the Central African Republic to the sands of Niger, France did nothing, a remarkable inaction after so many decades of French colonial rule in West Africa.

This time, France says, the stakes are too high.

Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, had been West Africa’s most prosperous and stable nation, a firm friend of France and an important trading partner. About 20,000 French nationals live here, many reluctant to leave even now.

French leaders say their intervention has already prevented a blood bath.

“The threat to the entire region posed by the crisis in Ivory Coast calls for a collective mobilization,” French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told the French daily Le Monde.

Ivory Coast’s rebels took up arms Sept. 19, accusing President Laurent Gbagbo’s southern-based administration of persecution of northerners. Rebels quickly took the northern half of the country. Ivory Coast -- its own army ranks depleted by defections to the rebel side -- brought in mercenaries and pleaded for help.

Since then, new rebel factions have emerged in the west, including Liberian fighters notorious for raping and pillaging.

France sent 1,000 troops in the first weeks of the crisis to try to restore a truce and is now doubling its involvement with a force expected to reach 2,500 by the end of this month.

The vast majority of that deployment is the Foreign Legion, the hired army famous for giving refuge to people who are at the end of their options -- adventure-seekers, convicts, star-crossed lovers, and others wanting to leave their old lives and real names behind.

In Ivory Coast, the mix includes Portuguese, Germans, French, English, and a host of other accents and nationalities. Many have seen action on the continent before.

Their official mission: to preserve stability, enforce the cease-fire and prevent abuses by either side. Maurin says the troops will use persuasion, dissuasion and intimidation before resorting to their impressive array of arms.

On the ground, the Legionnaires are in constant contact with rebels and loyalists. Relations seem good, although they can turn testy -- and fast.

A gun battle erupted Nov. 30 between French troops and western rebels, the more unrestrained of the two rebel blocs, killing 10 rebels and injuring a French soldier.

Earlier this month, farmers in central Ivory Coast flagged down Legionnaires to disarm a grenade found in a field. Government troops watched as the French detonated it, then gave the Legionnaires thumbs-up and vigorous handshakes.

It was a different scene up the road in the rebel-held town of Vavoua. Legionnaires met rebel leader Zacharia Kone, who was angry over France’s intervention.

Tensions eased after 15 minutes of to-and-fro between the French and the rebel leader, but Kone urged the French to withdraw.

“If the French were to leave today,” the rebel said, “in three days, we would be in Abidjan.”