France’s president said Friday that Paris will soon host an aid conference to help rebuild Lebanon after the Israel-Hezbollah war last year, as he visited Beirut in a show of support for Lebanon’s new leaders.
After a vacancy of more than two years, Joseph Aoun was elected president on January 9 and named Nawaf Salam as prime minister-designate.
“In the middle of winter, spring has sprung,” Macron said at a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart.
“You are this hope,” he said, referring to Aoun and Salam.
The new prime minister faces the monumental task of forming a government to oversee reconstruction after the Israel-Hezbollah conflict ended in November, and implement reforms demanded by international creditors in return for a desperately needed financial bailout.
At the French embassy on Friday evening, Macron said he was convinced a government would emerge in “the coming days”.
Salam, a former presiding judge at the International Court of Justice, separately said consultations with all political sides on potential cabinet line-ups this week had been “more than positive”.
Earlier in the day, Macron had pledged to help drum up financial aid at an international reconstruction conference when Aoun comes to Paris “in a few weeks’ time”.
“The international community must prepare for massive support to the reconstruction of infrastructure,” he said.
Analysts say Hezbollah’s weakening in the war last year allowed Lebanon’s deeply divided parliament to elect Aoun and back his naming of Salam as premier.
‘Long-lasting’ ceasefire
France administered Lebanon for two decades after World War I, and the two countries have maintained close relations.
Earlier in the day, Macron strolled through the Gemmayzeh neighbourhood, near the port of Beirut, posing for photographs and selfies with eager members of the public, and downing small cups of coffee offered to him along the way.
In August 2020, he was the first foreign leader to visit the neighbourhood days after it was devastated by a massive explosion at the port.
Four years later, Lebanese pushed through the crowd to speak to him.
“Please help us to form a new government able to bring my daughter back to Lebanon,” one woman said, explaining that her child had moved to France to study after being wounded in the huge blast.
An elderly lady called the French president “adorable”.
“Lebanon is dear to my heart,” Macron replied.
Families of the more than 22 people killed in the explosion are hopeful after a long-stalled inquiry into the disaster resumed on Thursday.
Macron said he would later meet UN chief Antonio Guterres, as a January 26 deadline to fully implement the Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire approaches.
With just over a week to go, he called for accelerated implementation of the truce.
“There have been results… but they must be accelerated and long-lasting. There needs to be complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the Lebanese army must hold a total monopoly of any weapons” in south Lebanon, he said.
Under the terms of the deal, the Lebanese army is to deploy alongside UN peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdraws.
At the same time, Hezbollah is required to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south and pull its forces back north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border.
‘Continued occupation’
Speaking to UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon, Guterres urged an end to Israel’s “continued occupation” and “military operations” in south Lebanon.
He also said that UN peacekeepers “uncovered over 100 weapons caches belonging to Hezbollah or other armed groups” since the November 27 ceasefire.
He added that the “presence of armed personnel, assets and weapons” other than those of the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers violated the terms of the UN Security Council resolution that formed the basis for the deal.
Hezbollah is the only group in Lebanon that did not surrender its weapons to the state following the 1975-1990 civil war.
It has played a key role in politics for decades, flexing its power in governmental institutions while engaging in fighting with the Israeli military.
