"The troops have landed in Abidjan," Commandant Frederic Thomazo told AFP from Abidjan's Felix Houphouet-Boigny international airport. He said the plane landed just after 11:00 pm (local and GMT).

The 150-strong contingent of paratroopers left Solenzara airbase in Corsica earlier Saturday, French military sources in the island said.

In all 500 additional troops will reinforce the current 1,200-strong French military presence in Ivory Coast, sent to contain a three-month-old conflict.

The main rebel group, the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement (MPCI), condemned France for sending more troops and involving itself in a "purely Ivorian affair" while an anti-French march turned violent in the country's rebel-held second city of Bouake.

The MPCI's Guillaume Soro renewed a warning to the French Friday to leave or risk all-out war.

The French government took the decision to send more troops as fighting in Ivory Coast intensified.

On Thursday the defence ministry said the French troops' rules of engagement now included use of force if they were challenged or witnessed mass outrages, a reference to mass graves discovered in the west of the country.

The French soldiers are now authorised to enforce a ceasefire which was signed by the rebels and the army on October 17 but was broken last month, when two new rebel groups capturing key towns in the west. The French troops had earlier been empowered only to monitor the truce.

The French reinforcements flew into increasing opposition to their presence in Ivory Coast.

A massive march against French involvement in Ivory Coast turned violent on Saturday in the former west African colony.

Shots rang out after thousands of people took to the streets of rebel-held Bouake, Ivory Coast's second city, to march on a Roman Catholic school where French soldiers have been stationed since the first days of the Ivorian conflict in September.

Paulin Zagadou, one of the organisers of the march, told AFP by telephone that the marchers were members of "civil society" who wanted to hand over a memorandum protesting against the French presence.

He said the French soldiers opened fire on the crowd and wounded four marchers, but this was denied by the spokesman for the French forces in Ivory Coast.

Lieutenant Colonel Ange-Antoine Leccia said the French had merely fired in the air to calm the excited crowd, which he estimated at 10,000 people.

According to Leccia two people were injured but he contended that they suffered machete wounds during a clash amongst the demonstrators themselves.

The conflict has seen rebels capture the north of the country and fan out across the west and in recent days it has threatened to turn into a full-blown war.

The main rebel group, the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement (MPCI) and the army this week began recruiting civilians and the United Nations said Saturday it was probing reports that both sides have were also trying to enlist refugees fleeing the conflict as fighters.

SPACE.WIRE