Excited atmosphere, cries of joy but also tensions and tensions between young people and the police: the Ivory Coast lived, Thursday, June 17, a historic day.

After 10 years of absence and two months after having been definitively acquitted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of crimes against humanity, Laurent Gbagbo has made his comeback to the country. 

If the former Ivorian president assured that he would speak of politics “later”, he also had this sentence for his supporters who came to acclaim their champion at the headquarters of his party, the Front populaire ivoirien (FPI): “I am your soldier, I remain mobilized ”.

If Laurent Gbagbo remains very popular among a large part of the population, his opponents believe that he has dragged his country into a spiral of violence by refusing to admit his defeat to Alassane Ouattara in the 2010 presidential election. This political blockage led to a bloody post-election crisis in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

>> To read on France 24: Ivory Coast: Laurent Gbagbo, the indefatigable fighter

Since 2000, the history of Côte d'Ivoire has been marked by political and ethnic violence, the latest dating back to the presidential election of October 2020 which left 85 dead. Alassane Ouattara was then re-elected for a third term in a ballot boycotted by the opposition, which deemed this new term unconstitutional.

With the long negotiated return of this emblematic political adversary, Côte d'Ivoire wants to believe in the beginning of a process of national reconciliation.

Does this return constitute a chance to open a new page in the history of Ivorian politics after two decades of political violence?

Elements of an answer with Christian Bouquet, professor emeritus of political geography at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne and researcher at the LAM Laboratory "Les Afriques dans le Monde" at Sciences-Po.  

France 24: Was it inevitable for the government of Alassane Ouattara to accept the return of Laurent Gbagbo to Côte d'Ivoire?

Christian Bouquet:

It was in line with his acquittal by the ICC.

It was abnormal not to allow Laurent Gbagbo to return to his country after being cleared, even if some say that cleared does not mean cleared.

He was cleared of the charges that prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had brought against him but many observers believe that this was not the right angle of attack, and this has created frustration among victims' associations in Côte ivory.

This return is not comfortable for the party in power because Laurent Gbagbo is a very charismatic character who can, on his own, without a government program, without a social project, mobilize tens of thousands of people just on his behalf. .

At the same time, this card had to be played.

Everyone today wants this appeasement.

We have seen it through the press articles, the speeches but also the posters which have flourished in recent days as far as the town of Gagnoa where we see a portrait of Laurent Gbagbo with the word: “Reconciliation” written.

Exactly, what form can this reconciliation process that could begin in the coming months take?

The return of Laurent Gbagbo is already a good start. We had also previously seen the return from exile of a number of opponents. There has been a very clear relaxation in recent months. We are talking here about political reconciliation, the one for which Minister Kouadio Konan Bertin is responsible, who will have to put oil in the wheels to prevent crises and conflicts so that we now learn to talk to each other in Côte d'Ivoire. Ivory without fighting or insulting each other.

But there is, in my opinion, another part of the reconciliation process that has already been achieved.

It is living together.

For those who experienced the post-electoral crisis in 2010, one had the impression that Ivorians could no longer live together.

Today, peace has returned to the villages and neighborhoods, even though violence was observed during the last presidential election.

Observers noted on this occasion how fragile this reconciliation could be… Did we not come close to disaster?

Yes, “grazed” is the right word, but this catastrophe did not take place.

We tend to forget it, but we must remember that Côte d'Ivoire was cut in two for five years and has since reunified.

This is unheard of in 20th century geopolitics. 

>> To see on France 24: Laurent Gbagbo: a return to Côte d'Ivoire at high risk?

Côte d'Ivoire has managed to go from a pre-insurgency situation to an almost total appeasement during the last legislative elections where we have even seen defeated power candidates congratulating their opponents.

Does Laurent Gbagbo have a political future? 

For this, he will have to unite his party which is divided, give it an ideological base and re-mobilize its troops.

During the last legislative elections, in Yopougon [popular district of Abidjan, editor's note] in his former stronghold, Michel Gbagbo, Laurent Gbagbo's own son, only obtained 40,000 votes out of 490,000 registered.

Admittedly, he was elected but we are far from the scores obtained by his father in 2010.

It remains to be seen whether the access of fervor, almost collective hysteria, that we observed during the return of Laurent Gbagbo will not be without tomorrow ... The future will tell us.

Everyone dreams of a relaxed interview with Laurent Gabgbo to find out his state of mind, his level of combativeness and whether he is at the start of a new political life. 

Laurent Gbagbo remains under sentence in Côte d'Ivoire to 20 years in prison for the "robbery" of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) during the 2010-2011 crisis.

Is it for him a sword of Damocles?

This is not anecdotal.

Although some say it was a political trial, there were also facts.

It is therefore to be taken seriously.

Will the power maintain the status quo?

Or will he be condemned and thus become ineligible?

All these questions will probably fuel the exchanges between the two camps in the weeks and months to come.

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