Ex-Ivory Coast President Gbagbo and wife Ehivet divorce

Former Côte d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo and his wife of 34 years Simone Ehivet Gbagbo have divorced.

French newspaper Le Monde (The World) reports the former powerful political couple parted ways on June 29, marking the end of their companionship that spanned some 50 years.

The paper quoted Ehivet's lawyer, Ange Rodrigue Dadjé, as saying she filed for termination of the union on grounds of "notorious adultery, abandonment of the marital home, and serious insults".

Le Monde said signs that the marriage was seemingly over became public in June 2021 upon Gbagbo's return to Abidjan after a 10-year absence.

The former Head of State had been indicted of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague but was acquitted.

Upon arrival at the airport, Ehivet was at hand to welcome him but he apparently shoved her aside like a stranger to many people's surprise.

"Everyone knew that the romance had long dissipated, and the husband had rebuilt his life with a former journalist, Nady Bamba, but the exposure of the break-up was brutal," Le Monde reported.

Gbagbo and Ehivet met in 1973 and married in January 1989 before half a dozen guests, after years of civil activism and fight for a multi-party system that saw them imprisoned severally. 

It includes a case in 2015 where a court in Ivory Coast on March 10 that year found the former first lady guilty of charges related to her role in a 2011 post-election crisis in which about 3,000 people were killed, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Two years later, in March 2017, she was acquitted by an Ivorian court of war crimes and crimes against humanity charges.

The pair founded the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) in 1982 which, according to Le Monde, Ehivet was the driving energy by way of mobilizing the party's grassroots.

The pair had twin daughters whom Ehivet raised alone during Gbagbo's self-imposed exile in France, the French paper said.