Both the so-called Republican Forces loyal to the new Ivoirian president Alassane Ouattara and French officials have been at great pains to insist that deposed president Laurent Gbagbo was captured by Ouattara’s troops and not by French troops. This is not what was initially reported. But, in any case, as an article in Tuesday’s edition of the French daily Libération puts it, “nobody is fooled.”

The capture of Gbagbo on Monday afternoon was preceded by an assault on the presidential residence in Abidjan, involving a reported four French helicopter gunships, 30 French tanks, and 200-250 French troops. According to Libération, the presidential residence was “largely destroyed and the grounds were strewn with the bodies of soldiers.” Much of the heavy weaponry of the Gbagbo loyalist Ivoirian armed forces had already been destroyed in prior French attacks.