The Young Patriots leader, Charles Ble Goude, has insisted that the movement is nonviolent.
Two days after these attacks, the Ivorian warplane bombarded the French peacekeepers, according to French officials, and France responded by destroying Ivory Coast's tiny air force and seizing the international airport in Abidjan, the country's commercial capital.
Men walked in a street of Yamoussoukro, the Ivorian capital, after lootings last weekend. Mobs have targeted French businesses, but other shops have also been attacked.
(Luc Gnago -- Reuters)
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That night, tensions boiled over. Reportedly at the urging of Ble Goude and others, the Young Patriots took to the streets. Violent clashes with the French military erupted through the weekend, and riots and looting continued for several days. An estimated 4,000 prison inmates also escaped.
Most of the damage occurred the first night, especially in sections with concentrations of French people, residents said.
Tens of thousands of French nationals once lived and worked in this country of 16 million, and Abidjan was regarded as one of Africa's most stable and prosperous cities. But after years of rising unrest, that number has dwindled to 15,000 or less. At least 2,000 have left in the past week.
Sylviane Aka, 43, was returning from a wedding last Saturday in the largely French area known as Zone 4. She described seeing mobs of young men marching down the street, wielding planks and knives and shouting, "We want white French to eat!"
As an Ivorian, Aka said she did not feel endangered, but with news of the French counterattack spreading rapidly, she sympathized with the urge for revenge.
"To French people, in their minds Ivorians are like monkeys in the trees," Aka said. "They have everything here . . . but it is from our raw materials that they get everything."
In other cases, Ivorians said, the mobs did not discriminate in choosing their targets. In one part of Zone 4, gangs destroyed and looted a pharmacy, a craft store, a lingerie shop, a hair salon, a computer center and a French restaurant. Several were owned by Ivorians.
Fatoumata Fondio, 54, said she heard the gangs moving through the neighborhood but didn't think her computer and business service was in danger. On Sunday, she learned that the uninsured business had been attacked. When she arrived to survey the damage, she said, she collapsed in tears. All that was left were a handful of documents and a pair of mouse pads.
Fondio, who said she had visited France twice, blamed the Young Patriots for the destruction. "We live with the French people," she said. "We used to live together."
