BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun visits France on Friday, his first trip to a European country since his January election and as Paris pushes Beirut for long-demanded political and economic reforms.
He is due to meet President Emmanuel Macron, who on a visit to Beirut days after Aoun’s appointment said France would hold an international aid conference to support Lebanon’s reconstruction after a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah.
No date for the conference has been announced.
Aoun was elected president after the position had been vacant for more than two years, under international pressure, including from former colonial power France.
His election, along with the formation of a new government in February led by reformist premier Nawaf Salam, ended a prolonged political impasse.
The breakthroughs came after the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, long a powerful player in Lebanese politics, was left heavily weakened in the war.
Lebanon’s new leaders now face the arduous task of reconstructing swathes of the country, and overseeing the disarmament of Hezbollah, beginning in south Lebanon.
They must also carry out reforms demanded by the international community to unlock bailout funds amid a five-year economic collapse widely blamed on official mismanagement and corruption.
“This visit to France is symbolically important” because Paris stood alongside Washington and Riyadh in pushing hardest for Aoun’s election, said Karim Bitar, lecturer in Middle East studies at Sciences-Po university in Paris.
The trip also aims to restore France’s “traditional role” in mobilizing “countries friendly to Lebanon” for their support at donor conferences, he added.
On Wednesday, Aoun told visiting French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian that he and the new government were “determined to overcome the difficulties that the reform process may face in the economic, banking, finance and judicial areas.”
Bitar said that despite recent optimism, “there are still reasons to fear the new leaders’ task will not be so simple.”
He accused “private interests” intrinsically linked to political, economic and media powers of seeking to “defend the system that has endured” since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Such interests also seek to “prevent any economic or social reform, any state-building,” or agreement with the International Monetary Fund, he charged.
Bitar also warned that Hezbollah was “not yet ready to hand over its weapons to the Lebanese state.”
Under the November 27 ceasefire, Hezbollah was to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Israeli border.
The Lebanese army was to deploy in the area, and any remaining Hezbollah military infrastructure there was to be dismantled.
The ceasefire, which France helps monitor, is based on United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for the disarmament of all non-state armed groups.
Israel still regularly strikes what it says are Hezbollah targets and occupies five border points it considers strategic.