France will provide in the coming months 100 million euros of direct aid to the Lebanese population, announced, Wednesday, August 4, Emmanuel Macron at the opening of an international conference in support of the Lebanese population, one year day for day after the deadly double explosion in the port of Beirut.
This assistance will relate in particular to education, food needs and agriculture, announced the French president, by opening, from Fort de Brégançon, this videoconference co-chaired by the UN.
The conference aims to respond to the "new" emergency needs of the population, estimated at 350 million dollars by the United Nations, in the areas of food, health, education and water sanitation. , we explain to the Elysee.
Aid of 280 million euros has already been mobilized during the first two international conferences organized by France, a former mandatory power, after the port tragedy in 2020.
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Introduction by President @EmmanuelMacron on the occasion of the 3rd International Conference in Support of the People of Lebanon.
https://t.co/uK5HwcQ9h9
- Elysee (@Elysee) August 4, 2021
"A historical and moral fault"
The country is on its knees, a year after the explosion, ranked among the largest non-nuclear blasts, which killed more than 200 people, disfigured part of the capital and traumatized the Lebanese.
It faces a triple political, economic crisis, one of the worst in the world since 1850, according to the World Bank, with shortages of fuel, medicines and blackouts of up to 22 hours a day, and health related to Covid-19.
The structural aid needed to end the crisis remains subordinate to the formation of a government and the implementation of reforms, which the international community has been calling in vain for months. The country has been without a government since the resignation of Hassan Diab and his team in the aftermath of the explosion. Lebanese leaders, locked in endless clientelist bargaining, have since remained deaf to all threats of sanctions, especially from Paris.
The new prime minister-designate on July 26, Najib Mikati, promised to form a government without delay. But for the moment nothing is moving. "The Lebanese leaders seem to be betting on rotting" by blocking for months the formation of a government and the implementation of reforms, thus deplored Emmanuel Macron during the videoconference, once again waving the threat of sanctions against them. against. Paris has already restricted access to French territory for several Lebanese personalities, without however revealing which ones.
"I think it is a historical and moral fault," he added. "They should not doubt for a single second of our determination," he insisted, recalling the "restrictive measures" already taken against them and the "sanctions regime" established by the EU on Friday. "The crisis in Lebanon is not a stroke of fate, nor a fatality. It is the result of individual and collective bankruptcies and unjustifiable dysfunctions".
"The Lebanese leaders are indebted for the truth, the transparency, with regard to their population" concerning the explosion at the port of Beirut, he also insisted while the conclusions of the investigation have not yet been returned, a year after the disaster.
"France and several other (countries) have cooperated to provide all the information at our disposal, we are available for all the technical cooperation" which would still be necessary in this investigation, the conclusions of which are "awaited by the entire Lebanese population", underlined the French president.
The head of state specified that France would also send to Lebanon 500,000 doses of vaccines against COVID-19 in the coming weeks.
The videoconference brings together representatives of around forty States and international organizations, remotely.
US President Joe Biden will speak via recorded message.
His Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Lebanese Head of State Michel Aoun will participate.
As well as the Iraqi, Canadian and Greek Prime Ministers, the Managing Director of the IMF and that of the World Health Organization (WHO), the President of the European Council Charles Michel, the foreign ministers of a dozen countries Europeans and representatives from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
With AFP and Reuters
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