It is a bitterly cold afternoon. A few blocks from the Champs Elysees, about 20 Ivorians are crowded in front of a building guarded by French police. This building is Ivory Coast’s embassy in Paris.
But the French government no longer recognizes the ambassador, who was appointed by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo. The French foreign ministry says it is waiting for the man widely believed to have won Ivory Coast’s presidential elections, Alassane Ouattara, to appoint a new envoy.
What began in Tunisia is no longer containable, as revolution sweeps through the Middle East, challenging whatever government lies in its path — including that of Colonell Moammar Gadhafi, or the “mad dog,” as President Ronald Reagan once called him.
Protests in Libya erupted on February 15 following the arrest of Fathi Terbii, a human rights attorney who represented the “relatives of more than 1,000 prisoners allegedly massacred by security forces in Tripoli’s Abu Salim jail in 1996,” the BBC reported.
Tunisia swore in a new interim president on the 15 January 2011 while struggling to contain looting, deadly prison riots and chaos in the streets.
The unrest came after President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was swept from power on Friday following a month of street protests over corruption, a lack of jobs and clampdowns on civil liberties.
What’s Going On In Egypt?: Protests started on Tuesday, January 25, when — inspired by the successful revolution in Tunisia — thousands began taking to the streets to protest poverty, rampant unemployment, government corruption and autocratic governance of President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for 30 years. These were the first protests on such a large scale in Egypt since the 1970s.