France condemns Sri Lanka rebels, wants U.N. meeting

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner speaks during a news conference in Sanaa in this February 21, 2009 file photo.

PARIS (Reuters) - France on Wednesday condemned Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels for preventing civilians from fleeing the country's war zone and called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the conflict.

Thousands of civilians surged out of the war zone on Wednesday, while soldiers and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels fought the apparent endgame of Asia's longest-running war despite calls to protect those trapped.

"The LTTE's refusal to let civilian populations flee the area is unacceptable and flouts international humanitarian law," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said in a statement.

By Wednesday morning, government troops had captured about a third of the remaining Tiger-held area, which had been an army-declared no-fire zone until soldiers marched in and turned it into the conflict's final conventional battlefield.

The massive civilian presence in the no-fire zone had been the last crucial defence for the Tigers, who refused repeated calls from the United Nations, Western governments and neighbouring India to release them.

In the third day since troops blasted through a massive earthen wall built by the Tigers and unleashed the exodus, the military said at least 95,000 people had been registered for onward transit to refugee camps.

The French ministers said it was the Sri Lankan government's responsibility to provide shelter for the displaced people and ensure that aid reached them.

"We want a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to be held today and for it to be used to reiterate the absolute necessity of protecting civilian populations and enabling their evacuation," Kouchner and Yade said.

Kouchner has said on Tuesday that France and Britain would try to send ships to Sri Lanka to evacuate civilians.

A French Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to elaborate on the plan but said that a U.N. Security Council meeting should "in principle" be held on Wednesday afternoon.