President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Lebanon on Thursday, the first world leader to visit Beirut after the port blast that wreaked destruction across the capital , as France seeks to push reconstruction in its former colony.
The blast on Tuesday, blamed on an unsecured store of ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port, devastated entire neighbourhoods, killed over 100 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 amid 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,” Mr. Macron wrote on Twitter. “We will discuss the situation with the political authorities,” he added.
Also read: Lebanon blast: reactions | World offers support, condolences
The President’s Elysee Palace office said Mr. 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 COVID-19 outbreak.
In the aftermath of that visit, Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti resigned in protest at his government’s lack of crisis management.
France has sent three planes to Beirut loaded with rescuers, medical equipment and a mobile clinic.
