PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron will seek to rally urgent aid for Lebanon but is also expected to press for overdue reform in France's ex-colony on the first visit by a world leader to Beirut after the deadly port blast.
His trip on Thursday (Aug 6) comes just two days after the blast – blamed on an unsecured store of ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port – killed over 100 people and destroyed entire neighbourhoods.
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It was the latest blow to a country already reeling from an unprecedented economic crisis and political turbulence.
But the apparent negligence that led to the blast has only amplified exasperation with the political elite across Lebanon's different confessional communities.
"I will go to Beirut tomorrow (Thursday) to bring the Lebanese people a message of fraternity and solidarity from the French," Macron wrote on Twitter.
"We will discuss the situation with the political authorities," he added.
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The president's Elysee Palace office said Macron will "meet all political actors", including President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
"The fact that Emmanuel Macron has so rapidly taken the bull by the horns and is coming to Beirut is being warmly welcomed in Lebanon," said Karim Emile Bitar, professor of international relations at Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
He said the visit recalled that of the trip made by former president Jacques Chirac in the wake of the assassination of tycoon and former premier Rafiq Hariri in Beirut in 2005.
Both sides will be hoping it goes more smoothly than a trip last month by France's top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian, who scolded Lebanon's political elite for being too "passive" in the face of an economic crisis compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.
In the aftermath of that visit, Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti resigned in protest at his government's lack of crisis management.
READ: What we know about the Beirut explosions so far
READ: Utter devastation as death toll from Beirut blast tops 100; rescuers search for survivors
"NO LIFELINE"
Le Drian had reaffirmed the message from his own Beirut trip that reforms were essential for Lebanon to move on.
"The country has the necessary strength to recover – what is needed is that a certain number of reforms are put in place," he said.
Bitar said the visit should not in anyway serve as a "lifeline" for Lebanon's political class but continue the pressure for reform from unprecedented protests last year.
"Aid needs to be made conditional on structural reform and reform of the Lebanese political system so that a new political class emerges," he told AFP.
Analysts say the sheer fact that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were left unsecured in a warehouse close to the city centre demands immediate answers from those ruling Lebanon.
Valerie Levallois, vice president of the Institute of Research on the Mediterranean and Middle East (IREMMO), said France knew that Lebanon's political system was "running out of breath".
But she expressed concern Macron would not give a "clear message" on the visit and instead "continue this fiction that there is a Lebanese state when there is not one.
"If there was a functioning state, this explosion would never have happened," she added.
The Lebanese national flag flies at half-mast at the Lebanon embassy in Paris after a pRead More – Source
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