ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — France rolled out overwhelming military force Sunday to put down an explosion of anti-French violence in its former West African colony, deploying troops, armored vehicles and helicopter gunships against machete-waving mobs that hunted house-to-house for foreigners.
In the second of two stunning days that stood to alter French-Ivory Coast relations -- and perhaps Ivory Coast itself -- French forces seized strategic control of the largest city, commandeering airports and posting gunboats under bridges in the commercial capital, Abidjan.
French military helicopters swept in to rescue a dozen trapped expatriates from the rooftop of a once-luxury hotel, flying them and their luggage to safety.
The airstrike on the peacekeepers came after government forces last week broke a cease-fire that had been in place for more than a year and launched aerial bomb attacks on rebel positions.
The chaos erupted Saturday when Ivory Coast warplanes launched a surprise airstrike that killed nine French peacekeepers and an American civilian aid worker. The government later called the bombing a mistake.
France hit back within hours, wiping out Ivory Coast's newly built-up air force -- two Russian-made Sukhoi jet fighters and at least three helicopter gunships -- on the ground.
President Laurent Gbagbo appealed for calm Sunday in his first public comments since the cease-fire was broken Thursday.
"I implore, I implore the population to stay calm ... and I ask all demonstrators to go back to their homes," the Ivorian leader said.
He thanked the army and hard-liner loyalists, and accepted no blame for the bombing of the French post, saying only that a bomb "supposedly" had caused the death of the nine French troops.
Gbagbo's spokesman told The Associated Press separately that Ivory Coast was willing to cease fire and immediately pull forces from the peacekeeper-controlled buffer zone.
The slain French troops were among 4,000 French peacekeepers and 6,000 U.N. troops in Ivory Coast, serving as a buffer between the rebel-held north and loyalist south since civil war broke out in September 2002.
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