Chad students protest French demands

Several thousand high school students demonstrated in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, on Nov. 14 against France’s continued insistence that six French citizens in prison since early October on charges of kidnapping 103 Chadian children be moved to France for trial.

They threw shoes at the French Embassy and rocks and bottles at cars driven by foreigners, shouting “Foreigners, child thieves” and “Sarko out of Chad.” “Sarko” refers to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who flew to Chad in early October, stayed for two hours, and brought back home with him three journalists and four Spanish airline attendants who had been involved in this attempted abduction by a group called Zoe’s Ark.

The police broke up the demonstration with tear gas and baton charges.

Albert Pahimi, Chad’s minister of justice, responding to Sarkozy’s insistence on a trial in France, said: “There is no chance that the trial will take place elsewhere. It will be held here in Chad.”

Djadda Oumar, an organizer of the demonstration, told the French newspaper Le Monde: “It’s like Chad is a big town for him. It is regrettable that a French head of state says stuff like that about the people of Chad.” France is the former colonial power in Chad, one of the poorest countries in Africa, and still has a number of bases there.

Details about the six French nationals held in Chad continue to emerge. French television has reported that one of them is a former French Foreign Legionnaire and another has had to be treated in a French military hospital for a drug overdose.