Ethnic riots kill six in Ivory Coast

Fighting between ethnic and religious groups was reported to have killed at least six people in Ivory Coast yesterday as France tried to salvage an agreement to end four months of civil war.

Rioting spread to a town 50 miles north of Abidjan while President Jacques Chirac of France appealed to the Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo, to respect his promise last week to implement a power-sharing agreement with rebel forces. President Gbagbo has all but repudiated the French- brokered accord since he returned to Abidjan from Paris on Sunday.

He told his cheering supporters on Monday night, after two days of anti-French riots in the streets of Abidjan: "Do not worry, what was said [in France] are [only] proposals. I am not ready to betray you." Both President Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, the French Foreign Minister, later reminded him publicly that he had, in fact, signed a power-sharing agreement.

Violence in the capital appeared to have abated yesterday. But in the town of Agboville Christian and animist supporters of Mr Gbagbo were reported to have attacked Muslim immigrants from the rebel-held north, killing at least six.