January 4, 2003	Saturday	Shawwal 30, 1423

PARIS, Jan 3: French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who decided the other day to make his way to Cote d’Ivoire in spite of the advice of some of his counsellors, found himself blocked inside the Ivoirian presidential palace at Abidjan earlier on Friday as an angry crowd, chanting anti-French slogans, refused to allow him to leave.

Finally, it took the personal intervention of head of state Laurent Gbagbo to call the crowd to reason and permit de Villepin to make his way to the French consulate in the Ivoirian economic capital.

The foreign minister was also expected later in the day to go and visit with French troops at Bouake, the site of a governmental helicopter attack on Tuesday that resulted in the deaths of eleven civilians.