French Prime Minister tours Africa

The French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has been visiting French troops stationed in Senegal as France prepares to withdraw thousands of its soldiers from its former African colonies.

Mr Jospin, addressing the troops in Dakar, said it was time for a new approach in which African states, helped by world powers and the United Nations, shouldered the burden of peacekeeping.

France is expected to withdraw up to forty per cent of its eight-thousand troops in west and central Africa.

It has announced plans for a peacekeeping training centre based in Ivory Coast; the United States is also training Senegalese and Ugandan troops for peacekeeping duties.

Mr Jospin is on his first African tour since his Socialist government won power following legislative elections last May.

He has now gone on to Mali.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service