Just when you think that things may be moving in the right direction ... See below
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Thousands of youths converged on Abidjan on Tuesday and clashes between Muslims and Christians were reported in a southern Ivory Coast town in a fourth day of protest against a French-brokered deal with rebels to end four months of war.
Ethnic and religious rioting gripped the town of Agboville, 80 km (50 miles) outside Abidjan, in the largely Christian south between local people opposed to the deal and Muslim immigrants from the rebel-held north.
"Churches have been burned and mosques have been burned. There is shooting in the air. There are certainly dead but we do not know how many," one resident in Agboville told Reuters by phone.
Tension between Ivory Coast's largely Muslim north and the more predominantly Christian south is at the root of a civil war which mushroomed out of a failed coup on September 19.
Crowds of youths gathered at the U.S. embassy in Abidjan to ask for help while venting their anger at former colonial power France, which they say bullied President Laurent Gbagbo into signing a deal too favourable to rebels holding half of the country.
"America welcome in Ivory Coast. France bye bye," said one placard.
There were no immediate signs of the violence of earlier demonstrations, when France's embassy and army base as well as French businesses and citizens were attacked.
On both sides of a front roughly splitting the rebel-held north from Gbagbo's south, the accord agreed in France is generally seen as a victory for the rebels.
France's foreign minister said on Tuesday Gbagbo had to explain the accord to the "extremists in his camp."
But Gbagbo has referred to the accord as "proposals" -- appearing to fall short of the clear power-sharing accord which France, the European Union and African leaders believed they had endorsed at the weekend.
Gbagbo got protesters off the streets on Monday by telling them there would be no further moves on what had been agreed at the peace talks until he had met deputies and the army -- which calls parts of the agreement humiliating.
Gbagbo has named a new prime minister to form a government meant to engineer reconciliation but the main sticking point now is who will get the defence and interior ministries.
The biggest of three rebel factions, the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI), says those posts were meant to come its way so it would have the confidence to disarm.
France has committed a 2,500-strong force to protect some 20,000 of its citizens in Ivory Coast and help stop the troubles but has said French soldiers will not be used to install the new government.
Fighting left hundreds of people dead and displaced more than one million before truces were signed with three rebel factions.
The rebels accuse Gbagbo of fanning discrimination against northerners and immigrants, mostly from its African neighbours to the north, who make up a quarter of the 16 million population. Gbagbo says the rebels are just hungry for power.
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