The French peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire urged the government army and police to send reinforcements to help it maintain order in the troubled west of the country on Tuesday after reporting that 18 people had been killed there in two weeks of ethnic clashes. Colonel Georges Peillon, the official spokesman of the 4,000-strong French peacekeeping force, said tension was rising in villages around the town of Bangolo, 600 km northwest of the capital Abidjan, where French soldiers had found the bodies of 18 people killed in ethnic fighting since 29 December.