By RFIPosted on 12-22-2019Changed on 12-22-2019 at 02:25

Fifteen years later, Emmanuel Macron will inaugurate a stele in tribute to the nine French soldiers killed during the bombing of the Descartes high school in Bouaké. It is the first time that a French president has visited the former rebel capital. For the occasion, the entire building has been rehabilitated.

At the start of the week, construction equipment continued to run in front of the Descartes high school. The road leading to it has been revamped to accommodate the two heads of state and the fully rehabilitated high school

" They are behind, over there, to pass the last layers so that everything is clean. We need to welcome the presidents with clean stuff , ”says a worker.

The portrait of René Descartes is once again displayed on the freshly painted walls. Hundreds of workers have followed one another to make this establishment brand new, symbol of the crisis of the 2000s.

Nicolas Djibo, the mayor of the city, remembers the state of the building when France ceded it to the city of Bouaké, after the 2004 bombing that killed nine French soldiers.

“ There were buildings that were totally destroyed, others partially destroyed and still others that were intact. It is in this state that we recovered this high school and today it is in full rehabilitation. You will see that there is not much left for the students to come and sit on the benches of the school. After more than fifteen years of closure, the school, now owned by the Ivorian state, should reopen in September 2020.

By inaugurating this stele in memory of French soldiers, it is a symbol of Ivorian-French history that will unfold this morning in Bouaké before Emmanuel Macron flies to Niger.

■ November 6, 2004, the Lycée Descartes, a French military camp, bombed

The Ivory Coast is then cut in two: the loyalists in the South, the rebels in the North ... and in the middle the Licorne force. In November, Laurent Gbagbo has just launched an operation to reconquer northern Côte d'Ivoire. His planes shell the rebel positions.

To everyone's amazement, they attacked the French camp on November 6.
At midday, the two planes, piloted by Belarusian mercenaries, drop their rockets. Ten killed, thirty-eight wounded: the heaviest toll for the army since the attack on the Drakkar in Lebanon, twenty years earlier.

From Paris, President Jacques Chirac orders reprisals: the Ivorian air fleet is shot down.

Angry reaction of supporters of Laurent Gbagbo: they take to the streets in droves in Abidjan and oppose the French army. The tension is extreme there and Franco-Ivorian relations are frozen. 8000 French people are repatriated.

Three weeks later, Togo challenges the pilots and makes them available to France. But Paris lets them go. Why ? This is one of the many puzzles of what will later be called the Bouaké affair. The Élysée Palace recognizes that this file is still " sensitive " today. Emmanuel Macron is the first French president to go there since the tragedy.

In three months, the first trial in this case will open in Paris to try to establish responsibilities. It will be at the Paris Assize Court from March 17.

► To (re) read and (re) listen also:

our series of five articles on the enigma of the bombing of Bouaké

our podcast: part 1 and part 2

Latest legal information

    On the same subject

    France and Ivory Coast relaunch anti-terrorist academy project

    Emmanuel Macron wants to give “new strength” to Operation Barkhane in the Sahel

    ICC: conditions for the release of Laurent Gbagbo discussed on February 6

    Côte d'Ivoire: security and stability at the heart of Macron's visit

    Côte d'Ivoire: opening of the trial of Mr. Blé Goudé for crimes against humanity

    comments