Judgment_paragraph 67 · Laurent Gbagbo (C‑478/11 P), Katinan Justin Koné (C‑479/11 P), Akissi Danièle Boni-Claverie (C‑480/11 P), Alcide Djédjé (C‑481/11 P) and Affi Pascal N’Guessan (C‑482/11 P) v Council of the European Union (C-478/11 P, C-479/11 P, C-480/11 P, C-481/11 P, C-482/11 P)

67The Council states that one of the constituent elements of the concept of force majeure is the occurrence of an event outside the control of the person who wishes to rely on it, that is to say when something happens which the person concerned can take no action to influence (Case C-334/08 Commission v Italy [2010] ECR I-6869, paragraph 47). Yet the post-election crisis in Côte d’Ivoire and the violence associated with that crisis were provoked by the refusal of Mr Gbagbo and his colleagues to surrender power to the elected President. Those circumstances are therefore not outside the control of the appellants.