President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that France’s road map for easing the crisis in Lebanon was still on the table and he planned to make a third visit there, Al Arabiya television reported.
Speaking at a media roundtable, Macron said the French plan was the only solution to Lebanon’s crisis and that he would do all he could to assist the formation of a government, according to the Saudi-owned channel.
French President Emmanuel #Macron reaffirms his country’s assistance to Lebanon in terms of government formation during a phone call with Lebanon’s President Michael #Aoun.https://t.co/2yPhzFZ36w
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) January 30, 2021
The French president has been spearheading international efforts to rescue Lebanon, once a French protectorate, from its financial meltdown – its deepest crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.
He has travelled twice to Beirut since a huge explosion at the port in August devastated swathes of the capital, but no progress has been made to form a credible interim government yet.
Macron was scheduled to visit Lebanon a third time in December but the trip was cancelled after he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
In Lebanon, fractious politicians have been unable to agree on a new government since the last one quit in the aftermath of the Beirut blast, leaving Lebanon adrift as poverty spreads.
A new government is the first step on a French roadmap that envisages a cabinet that would take steps to tackle endemic corruption and implement reforms needed to trigger billions of dollars of international aid to fix the economy, which has been crushed by a mountain of debt.
"France has for years been supplying Lebanese security forces with law enforcement equipment that they then used to commit or facilitate serious human rights violations" - Amnesty International https://t.co/w495j1OMtf
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) January 31, 2021
Earlier this week, France said the United States under new President Joe Biden needs to adopt a more realistic attitude towards the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement to help break the political and economic impasse in Lebanon.
While former US president Donald Trump’s administration backed Macron’s initiative, it opposed efforts to include the heavily armed Hezbollah that wields enormous power in Lebanon and which Washington brands a terrorist group.
“There is urgency in Lebanon and we think that there are priorities that we (France and the United States) can pursue together,” a French presidential official told reporters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added Macron’s first priority was putting together a viable Lebanese government.
“We don’t expect a change in American attitude towards Hezbollah, but more American realism on what is possible or not given the circumstances in Lebanon,” he said, without elaborating on what Paris wanted Washington to do.
It remains unclear how Biden’s administration might tackle Lebanon. The 2015 US Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act (HIFPA), which aimed to sever the group’s global funding networks, was imposed during President Barack Obama’s administration, in which Biden was vice president.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
