(7 Feb 2003)
1. Wide pan from French troops to Air France plane
2. Wide troops disembarking
3. Mid-shot French forces coming off plane
4. SOUNDBITE: (French) Colonel Philippe Perret, French army:
"The mission of these military troops is to provide protection and security for the French Nationals and foreign ex-patriots that are currently in Abidjan."
5. Troops carrying bags
6. Troops walking off tarmac
STORYLINE:
Hundreds of French reinforcements arrived in Ivory Coast city on Friday to protect French and foreign nationals from violent loyalist riots and protests over a Paris-brokered peace accord.
The 300 soldiers who flew into the southern city of Abidjan, are joining more than 2,500 troops and 200 paramilitary police already in the former French colony.
An additional 150 troops will arrive by the end of the week, officials said.
Around a third of the new arrivals will be French special forces, according to authorities in France.
Enraged government supporters blame France for an agreement that would give Ivory Coast rebels control of the military and police.
The deal, reached on January in Paris after two weeks of talks, is meant to end Ivory Coast's four-month old civil war.
Protesters want Gbagbo to abandon the peace accord and accuse France of trying to overthrow the Ivorian government, which France vehemently denies.
On Thursday France's Defence Ministry said that around 3,000 of its nationals had fled its former colony since the loyalist riots began full-force, on January 26, leaving around 15,000 French citizens in the country.
The United Nations has now ordered all its non-essential staff out of the warring West African country following the evacuation of thousands of other foreigners.
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