Macron warns Lebanon risks 'civil war' if not helped
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday warned that Lebanon risks a go back to civil war if it's left alone to manage the crisis that followed the deadly Beirut port explosion this month.
Macron was speaking as he ready to head to Lebanon on Monday in a fresh bid to press its leaders to attempt radical reform in the wake of the explosion this month that left 181 dead.
"If we let Lebanon go in your community and if we somehow leave it in the hands of the depravity of regional powers, it will be civil war" along with "the defeat of what is the identity of Lebanon," he said.
Paris is impatient over having less progress in forming a fresh government to attempt reform in the aftermath of the blast, that was blamed on a store of ammonium nitrate left for a long time in a warehouse.
Many Lebanese have blamed the disaster on a ruling class they charge to be mired in nepotism, corruption and neglect because the 1975-1990 civil war.
Macron spoke of the "constraints of a confessional system" in a country populated by Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiites.
But he said that put into this was "what could be mildly referred to as vested interests" which had led to "a predicament where there is hardly any (political) renewal and where there is nearly an impossibility of undertaking reforms."
He insisted that France would follow a policy of being "demanding without interfering" and awaited reforms like passing an anti-corruption law and reforming public contracts, the energy sector and the banking system.
"If we usually do not do this, the Lebanese economy will collapse" and "the only victim is definitely the Lebanese persons (...) who cannot get into exile", he warned.
He extolled Lebanon's multi-confessional make-up saying it "is perhaps one of the last existing forms" in the centre East of the "peaceful possible coexistence of religions" and a pluralist system based on "education and culture." - AFP
