The career of Jean-Yves Le Drian takes a new flight abroad. The former foreign minister was appointed by Emmanuel Macron “personal envoy for Lebanon”, the Elysée announced on Wednesday. Jean-Yves Le Drian, presented as a man with solid experience in “crisis management”, “plans to go to Lebanon very quickly”, added an adviser to the Head of State. The president asked him “to report to him quickly on the situation. »
“The situation remains difficult in Lebanon”, with the need to “get out of both the political crisis and the economic and financial difficulties”, estimated the adviser to the president, recalling that Emmanuel Macron had personally “committed a lot”. on this file. According to Paris, there is an urgent need “to bring together a form of consensus” to allow the election of a president of Lebanon, a country without a head of state for more than seven months because of the political deadlocks in this system with complex balances. And also to accelerate the implementation of “necessary reforms. »
An upcoming election
The Lebanese Parliament is convened on June 14 to try again to elect a president. But it is deeply divided between the camp of the pro-Iranian Shiite movement Hezbollah, which does not have the necessary majority to impose its candidate, the ex-minister Sleiman Frangié, and its adversaries, in particular Christian parties, also unable to here to impose the name of Michel Moawad. The latter withdrew his candidacy to support Jihad Azour, a senior official of the International Monetary Fund, who is however not yet a formal candidate.
“Since the Parliament is convened, this deadline must be useful”, “we must not waste any opportunity”, pleaded the Elysée, noting the emergence of two candidates, Sleiman Frangié and Jihad Azour. “Our line remains the same”, namely that the way out of the crisis “requires more than an agreement on a name”, added the French presidency, which has said for months that it has no candidate for the succession of Michel Aoun, whose presidential term expired on October 31.