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PORT-GENTIL, Gabon : French oil giant Total pulled its foreign staff out of Gabon's second city Saturday as security forces clashed anew with protesters opposed to the election of Ali Bongo as president.
At least two people have been shot dead over three days of unrest since the election results were announced. One opposition party has called for "resistance" to declaring the son of the late veteran leader Omar Bongo as Gabon's new president.
Security forces battled looters through the night in Port-Gentil where a curfew has been ordered after a police station and the offices of French companies were attacked.
Public buildings and a sports and social club run by Total were destroyed in new attacks. On Friday stores and petrol stations in the West African country's oil capital were attacked and set ablaze.
Total sent its Port-Gentil staff and their families to the capital Libreville on a "temporary" basis to keep them safe, a company spokesman said. Only local staff would remain in the port city.
France, the former colony power, evacuated most of its citizens out of Port-Gentil after the French consulate there was razed on Thursday, and warned French nationals elsewhere in the country to stay in their homes.
France has a military base near the capital Libreville, but Gabon's interim defence minister Jean-Francois Ndongou has ruled out asking French troops to help.
The government said a night-time curfew in Port-Gentil would remain in place until further notice.
Extra security was ordered for a football World Cup qualifying match between Gabon and Cameroon in Libreville on Saturday, with 20,000 people expected to attend the game.
Ali Bongo was declared winner of last Sunday's election with 42 percent of the vote.
Andre Mba Obame, a former interior minister, came in second with 26 percent of votes, followed by main opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou with 25 percent. But all three had proclaimed victory after the polls closed.
Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila, current head of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECOWAS), urged political leaders to "abstain from any initiative that would disturb the peace."
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the current chairman of the African Union, telephoned Ali Bongo to express "his best wishes to the new president," Libya's official JANA news agency reported.
The French government, which has been accused by its Socialist opposition of endorsing a flawed election, denied it had a favourite candidate and said it was ready to work with the oil-rich nation's elected president.
"France did not have any candidate, none," French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet told AFP, adding that the election was "welcomed by international observers."
Ali Bongo called on his defeated rivals to accept the outcome.
"The people have spoken and the people are sovereign," he told France's Le Monde daily.
Mba Obame has called the result an "electoral coup", and Mamboundou's Union for the Gabonese People (UPG) has called for "resistance" against the election result and said it was unsure where the leader was.
Security forces used tear gas and baton charges against demonstrators, including Mba Obame and Mamboundou, outside the electoral commission headquarters before the results were announced Thursday, witnesses and their supporters said.
The authorities denied there was any action against the opposition leaders.
- AFP /ls
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