Macron visits Beirut
PARIS, France (AFP) — President Emmanuel Macron left Paris for Lebanon on Thursday on a first visit by a world leader to Beirut after the deadly port blast, the Elysee Palace said, as France seeks to provide its former colony with urgent disaster aid.
The blast on Tuesday — blamed on an unsecured store of ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port — devastated entire neighborhoods, killed over 100 people and left up to 300,000 without homes.
It was the latest blow to a country already reeling from an unprecedented economic crisis and political turbulence.
Hoping the visit goes more smoothly.
And there is growing exasperation with the powerful elite across Lebanon’s different confessional communities.
“I will go to Beirut tomorrow to bring the Lebanese people a message of fraternity and solidarity from the French,” Macron wrote on Twitter.
“We will discuss the situation with the political authorities,” he added.
The president’s Elysee Palace office said Macron will “meet all political actors,” including President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
Both sides will be hoping the visit goes more smoothly than a trip last month by France’s top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian, who scolded Lebanon’s political elite for being too “passive” in the face of an economic crisis compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.
In the aftermath of that visit, Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti resigned in protest at his government’s lack of crisis management.
Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said Wednesday at least 21 French citizens were injured in the blast and prosecutors had opened a probe into “negligent injury” using their jurisdiction to investigate acts committed abroad.
Beirut governor Marwan Aboud told the estimated cost of the damage from the explosion was between $3.0 billion and $5.0 billion.
France on Wednesday sent three planes to Beirut loaded with rescuers, medical equipment and a mobile clinic.
Two military planes would leave from Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris with 55 search and rescue personnel on board and 25 tonnes of medical supplies.
A third plane, provided by the chief executive of shipping giant CMA-CGM Rodolphe Saade who is of Lebanese origin, took off from Marseille with medical equipment and a nine-strong medical team.
Le Drian said France will continue mobilizing assistance as needed.
“For now, it is time to ensure international solidarity” with Lebanon, he told the LCI broadcaster, adding the destruction of silos holding grain in the blast was a particular concern.