ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast ? Rock-throwing loyalist mobs beset the French embassy and a French military base on Sunday, attacking foreigners and pillaging stores, to protest a French-brokered peace deal as too favorable to Ivory Coast rebels.

The massive demonstrations came a day after President Laurent Gbagbo, ending Paris peace talks that lasted two weeks, agreed to share power with rebel leaders and end a bloody four-month civil war.

“People have to understand that you don’t leave a war in the same way as you leave a gala dinner,” Gbagbo said Sunday as the talks ended.

“There are two ways of getting out of a war. You win militarily, or if you don’t win, you negotiate and compromise.

“I did not win the war,” he admitted.

Gbagbo named Seydou Diarra, a former prime minister from the rebel-held Muslim north, to lead a coalition government that will rule the world’s largest cocoa producer until elections can be held.

Protests erupted because many Ivorians in Abidjan, the heavily pro-government commercial hub, resist the rebels and believe that France forced Gbagbo to accept a flawed deal that won’t work.

“We don’t want the French to impose a government on us,” said Rachel Guede, 26, as smoke from burning tires and tear gas rose from the French embassy 50 yards away. “The rebels will never rule us.”

Besides Diarra’s appointment, the rebels may also hold two powerful ministries — possibly Interior and Defense — giving them control over the army and paramilitary police, according to Ivorian news reports.

A French helicopter hovers above the French embassy compound, at bottom right, as protesters gather at a stadium, left, with smoke rising from the area, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Mobs in the country's largest city on Sunday attacked foreigners and French institutions in violent protests against a French-brokered peace plan.

On Sunday, the Interior minister refused to confirm or deny the reports.

But Jules Yao Yao, an army spokesman, declared on national television that “certain aspects of the accord humiliate the defense and security forces, the state and the Ivorian people.”

Despite the furious protests, West African leaders, attending the Paris talks, endorsed the accord Sunday. European donors led by France pledged $432 million over 5 years to rebuild the crippled Ivory Coast as long as the accord is respected.

France already has committed 2,500 troops to protect 20,000 French nationals here, stop the civil war and protect French interests in its former colony, They include cocoa, rubber and other lucrative industries. Most Ivorians embrace French culture, yet resent the inequalities of it.

Before dawn Sunday, gangs set fire to a French school and ransacked a French cultural center. They looted businesses owned by French nationals or West African immigrants believed sympathetic to the rebels.

French soldiers responded with tear gas and loud riot-control rounds at protesters approaching their base. Elsewhere, mobs erected roadblocks and barricades that shut down traffic and grounded international flights.