A deadly clash between Ivory Coast rebels and French peacekeeping troops, along with a political row, cast a shadow Wednesday over week-old peace talks being held in Paris, which were otherwise reported as making good progress.

At least eight rebels were killed or wounded and a French soldier was badly injured and had to have his forearm amputated after a clash with rebels near the western town of Duekoue, French military sources said Wednesday.

Colonel Emmanuel Maurin, the regional commander, said another soldier was slightly wounded in the fighting which took place Tuesday "during a patrol north of our positions" in the region close to the Liberian border.

"Between eight and 10 assailants were put out of action during the clash, killed or wounded," French army spokesman Colonel Christian Baptiste said in Paris, adding that one, and possibly both injured French soldiers could be evacuated.

In France, talks had Wednesday been under way for a week among three rebel groups, the Ivory Coast government and opposition parties, aimed at bringing an end to a civil war which has divided the former French colony in west Africa.

Several parties to the closed-door talks taking place at a national rugby centre in Marcoussis, south of Paris, have in the past two days reported good progress on settling some aspects of the conflict.

But the speaker of the Ivory Coast national assembly on Wednesday accused the French government of seeking in its mediation at the talks to oust President Laurent Gbagbo.

Mamadou Koulibaly, who walked out of the talks on Monday, told AFP that Pierre Mazeaud, a former French minister who is chairing the round table talks, was "trying to stage a constitutional coup."
Koulibaly on Wednesday said that Mazeaud seemed to favour the rebels and the main opposition Rally of Republicans (RDR) party and had "put the people of Ivory Coast, not the rebels, in the witness box."
"He is putting pressure on us to please the rebels," Koulibaly added.

France has deployed 2,500 soldiers in Ivory Coast to police fragile truces between the three rebel groups, who hold the north and west of the country, and Gbagbo's soldiers, who defend the south.

Peacekeepers have clashed several times with rebels near Duekoue, close to the cocoa belt in the world's leading producer of the cash crop. The situation there is complicated by the presence of fighters from troubled Liberia.

Western Ivorian rebels had apologised for previous skirmishes, which they had blamed on a "misunderstanding", and pledged to ensure that they were not repeated.

Baptiste blamed Tuesday's attack on "about 30 uncontrolled elements ... people who are violent by nature and think of nothing but creating havoc."
The insurgents, whose uprising on September 19 set off the conflict, have vowed to topple Gbagbo and secure the rights of people from the Muslim-dominated north and ethnic groups who they say have been marginalised by successive regimes.

The root of the unrest is widely seen to be the divisive policy of Ivorianness, developed in the 1990s, which critics say is like a caste system reserving the top slots for "genuine" Ivorians while discriminating against others.

However, a French source close to the talks said the participants had reached agreement on the thorny issue of nationality criteria for presidential elections and had moved on to the tricky issue of calling early polls, a step Gbagbo has ruled out.

Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, who heads the RDR party, was barred from contesting the polls in 2000 which brought Gbagbo to power, on the contentious ground that he was not 100 percent Ivorian.

The talks were further complicated by rebel allegations that Gbagbo tried to bribe the insurgents through labour and civil service minister, Hubert Oulaye, who supposedly gave them envelopes stuffed with cash.

French officials declined to comment on the allegations, but a source close to the talks confirmed them, saying: "It did happen... It's of no real consequence and doesn't undermine the negotiating process." - Sapa-AFP.