Special envoy to Abidjan
There is there an air of a fair and a sort of almost religious fervor.
The crowd is compact, filling the small streets of Cocody, a district of Abidjan, their eyes riveted on the high walls of a house where Laurent Gbagbo has finally arrived.
After ten years of exile, of trial, the former Ivorian president returned home Thursday, in this former headquarters of the Ivorian Popular Front, his party.
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So his supporters do not shy away from their joy.
At nightfall, we exteriorize, shouting the graces of “
Woody de Mana
”, and we sing in honor of this long-awaited return by diverting old slogans from electoral campaigns.
Those who have been called the GORs, the “
Gbagbo or nothing
”, faithful among the faithful during this decade of absence, receive communion.
Their necks outstretched, they chant "
we want to see Gbagbo
".
Others taunt, almost ecstatic: “
We saw Gbagbo
”.
These are the lucky ones.
To catch a glimpse of the former head of state was complicated on Thursday.
Is this a wish of Laurent Gbagbo,
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