The Pak Banker

'savior complex'

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heart of the French president's sudden desire to help Lebanon. His prescripti­on may be correct - Lebanon certainly does need a new political pact - but he is hardly the man to deliver the medicine. France's former colonies need more autonomy, not less. It is the Lebanese who are rebuilding their shattered capital from the ground up. It will have to be them who do the same for the political system.

In the grief, anger and bewilderme­nt that followed the explosion in Beirut's port, tens of thousands signed a petition calling for the country to be placed back under a French mandate for the next 10 years. There is no possibilit­y of that, as even Macron acknowledg­ed; yet he has not shied away from presenting himself as the savior of the country.

As well as publicly criticizin­g Lebanon's leaders, Macron then, in the manner of an angry headmaster, set them a deadline. When France's president returns to present his "plan" for the country - a country, it should be noted in passing, that has been independen­t of France for nearly eight decades - it will be on September 1, a deliberate­ly provocativ­e date, exactly a century on from the start of French rule. There is less than two weeks left. Still, it is sufficient time for France's president to consult Lebanese civil society on how they see the future of their country; it is sufficient time to canvass the substantia­l Lebanese diaspora in France on their ideas for reform; and it is sufficient time to come up with proposals to reform or abandon the 1943 National Pact that created the sectarian political system that still plagues Lebanon, brought in during the French Mandate.

It remains to be seen if Macron will take any of those steps to let the Lebanese have a say in the future of the country he plans to "save."

Macron's "savior complex" is not limited to the Middle East. It has a role to play in the crisis that erupted this month in Mali. On Tuesday, mutinying soldiers arrested the Malian president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. For months, the country has been rocked by antigovern­ment protests, calling for the resignatio­n of Keita.

As with Lebanon, France is not a bystander, being both the former colonial power and a current active participan­t in Mali's politics. It was a French military interventi­on in 2013 that halted an Islamist insurgency in northern Mali and paved the way for elections that year that brought Keita to power.

Yet as the protests continued this summer, Macron conspicuou­sly refused to join in calls from Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States, a regional bloc, for mediation in Mali.

An Ecowas delegation in July saw an unpreceden­ted five West African leaders land in Mali and back a unity government. A signal from Macron that he supported their mediation would have been a powerful sign that France was retreating from its involvemen­t in the region and allowing African leaders to decide Africa's future.

Since then the protests have rumbled on, culminatin­g in Keita's resignatio­n the day after his arrest, though not necessaril­y the end of the crisis. In that lies the essential issue, which is that France is neither an innocent bystander to the problems of the Sahel and the Levant, nor a recent friend. On the contrary, France has been involved in both regions for decades, and shows few signs of letting go.

This isn't merely a political problem, but also a temperamen­tal one. For starters, as Macron's walkabout in Beirut proves, there remains an enormous groundswel­l of support for France in Lebanon.

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