ANALYSIS
This is one of the images that will remain of Emmanuel Macron's mandate in foreign policy: the French head of state meeting the Lebanese in the streets of Beirut, two days after the explosion in part of the port . During this visit, the French president imposed an ultimatum on September 1 on the Lebanese political class, whose corruption he openly denounced. A justified behavior, according to diplomat Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, former secretary general of the Quai d'Orsay from 2017 to 2019. "France cannot stand idly by in what is happening in Lebanon," he believes. there on Europe 1, Sunday.
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During this visit, Emmanuel Macron met Lebanese who urged him to drive the current political class from power, many Lebanese denounce the negligence. "It is not a question of imposing anything", relativizes Maurice Gourdault-Montagne at the microphone of Charles Villeneuve in the "Grand interview" of Europe 1. "It is a question of putting in front of their responsibilities a a certain number of officials to tell them 'do something, we will be at your side' ", affirms the former" sherpa "of Jacques Chirac, according to whom" there has never been any reform in this country ".
Macron "in the footsteps of Chirac"
In this context of protest by part of the people, which threatens to hang the leaders in power, "France is ready to federate and catalyze, because it has this precedence in the relationship with Lebanon". The risk, points out the diplomat, is to see this once rich country sink into misery and fall into civil war. "If Lebanon disintegrated, it would have an extremely serious impact on the entire region," warns the former French ambassador to China. This is the reason why "France, a Mediterranean country, a country linked to Lebanon for a long time, cannot sit idly by in what is happening in Lebanon at the moment".
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With Emmanuel Macron, France continues to have an active policy in Lebanon, a country of which a diaspora of 50,000 nationals lives today in France. "The President of the Republic is in the footsteps of many of his predecessors, the last being Jacques Chirac", analyzes Maurice Gourdault-Montagne.
And if "Lebanon must be a point of stability" in the Middle East region, "it is out of the question to speak of a new mandate, of interference or of interference", because times have changed. "There are enough competent officials in Lebanon to take their own destiny into their own hands," the diplomat concludes.