A rebel group in the Ivory Coast has accused France of waging war after a battle with French troops who are trying to maintain a truce in the country's civil war.

"Now it will be a fight to the finish," the Popular Ivorian Movement for the Far West (MPIGO) said in a statement released on Sunday, the AFP news agency reports.

Saturday's fighting was the first time French troops in Ivory Coast tried to halt advances by rebels into government-held areas of the south and east.

The BBC's Paul Welsh in Ivory Coast says French troops have finally been sucked into the civil war.

Several losses

Saturday's fighting broke out when MPIGO rebels encountered a heavily armed contingent of the French Foreign Legion based in the western town of Duekoue.

"The MIPGO lost several men," the rebel statement said. France says it suffered no casualties.

Saturday's clash happened on a dirt road just outside Duekoue - a strategically important city where two major roads from the north and the west meet and head to the capital Yamoussoukro.

France denies it started the fighting.

"They opened fire on us," an army spokesman told Reuters news agency. "We fired warning shots and then they used heavy weapons."

The rebels say they did not intend to attack the French position and were chasing the Ivory Coast army.

Our correspondent says Saturday's clash marks a change in the role of French troops, whose official role is to protect foreign nationals and enforce a truce in the country's three-month-old civil war.

Quagmire?

France has more than 1,500 troops in Ivory Coast.

The French positioned themselves on the outskirts of Duekoue

It was initially mandated as a buffer force to maintain a fragile ceasefire signed on 17 October, between the government troops and another rebel group, the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement (MPCI).

The MPCI on Saturday described the French troops as "forces of occupation".

In recent weeks the MIPGO and a third rebel group have emerged.

The MIPGO says the three groups will hold talks on Monday.

The French say there has been no change in their policy in Ivory Coast - that they are continuing to protect foreigners and enforce the ceasefire with the MPCI.

The United Nations Security Council has condemned the rebels for attempting to overthrow Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo.

UN fears

In its first intervention since the conflict began three months ago, the Security Council last week said it was gravely concerned about the consequences of the fighting, for both the country and the wider region.

It also praised the French for sending troops into the region.

Ivory Coast rebels began their uprising in September, spearheaded by an army revolt.

The country - the world's largest cocoa producer and previously seen as a beacon of peace in the troubled region - has now been divided in two, with rebels controlling the largely Muslim north.