Macron warns in Beirut that without reforms there will be no international aid to Lebanon

French President Emmanuel Macron in the port of Beirut on Tuesday.POOL / Reuters

Emmanuel Macron has pledged his international capital in Lebanon, in a risky attempt to amend the sectarian system that governs it through a "compromise" with the political class in power after the civil war (1975-1990).

On his second visit to Beirut after the August 4 explosion in a port warehouse, the French president warned on Tuesday that "scheduled foreign aid" for Lebanon will not be delivered until the limits are defined within a maximum period of eight weeks. reforms needed to end corruption and patronage

The conditions that Macron has proposed to the parties of the former French protectorate of Lebanon, created a century ago, entail the call for “an electoral process within a period of between six months and one year”, with new rules outside the model of confessional quotas.

In return, he announced the holding in the second half of October of a new international donor conference in Paris to help bring the country out of the economic collapse and repair the damage caused by the deflagration in the port of Beirut, which claimed at least 190 deaths. and 6,500 injured and left some 300,000 homeless.

He also promised to return to Beirut in December to check on the progress of the reforms.

"This is the last chance for this system," the French president declared in a televised press conference that began three hours later than the schedule provided by Elíseo.

Macron assured that all the parties had committed to the formation of a new government within two weeks.

"We will then see if the contract we have sealed will begin to be fulfilled," he said, and "if in October, in six or eight weeks, there is no clear reform roadmap, including an audit by the Lebanese Central Bank, there will be consequences and the international community will not give a blank check ”.

To questions from the press, he also pointed out that if there are “illegalities or cases of corruption” in the management of foreign aid, the Lebanese leaders involved may be subjected to sanctions in coordination with the European Union.

"It would be crazy to continue as if nothing had happened down the cliffs of the explosion," she concluded.

Lebanon is 100 years old, although it did not declare its independence from Paris until 1943 — in a commemoration marked by official ceremonies.

Hours before the arrival of the French head of state in Beirut, on Monday night, the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, had appointed the diplomat Mustafa Adib, ambassador to Berlin since 2013, as prime minister. A majority of the parties (with the endorsement out of 90 of the 120 seats in Parliament) endorsed this almost unknown technocrat.

It was the precondition Macron had imposed on his previous visit to the still-smoking ground zero of the explosion.

They are the third head of government in 10 months, after fellow technician Hassan Diab - who resigned after the Beirut port tragedy - and Saad Hariri, head of the main Sunni political force.

The Elysee has now demanded the swift constitution of a government of experts with the task of saving the country from the worst crisis recorded since the end of the civil war three decades ago.

Adib's first mission will be to seal an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

His appointment as prime minister does not seem to clear up the doubts hovering over the real intentions of the Lebanese ruling class, whom the French president has politely invited to perform harakiri.

The scenario is devastating: amid the health crisis of the pandemic, the unemployment rate rises to 30% and half of the 4.5 million Lebanese live below the poverty line.

The electricity supply is only guaranteed for a few hours a day, inflation stands at 60% per year, public debt exceeds 170% of Gross Domestic Product and the pound has devalued 80% since October last year.

The protests returned to the streets of Beirut, where youth groups clamored against Adib's appointment as prime minister, Efe reports.

The security forces responded with tear gas grenades to the throwing of stones.

The new president's low political profile limits his ability to maneuver before the powerful sectarian and confessional barons, many of whom still behave as warlords.

Sponsored by former Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Adib, a university professor and senior official, has managed to circumvent the veto that Hezbollah, the main parliamentary force, had decreed against other candidates from the Sunni Muslim community.

With a political and military strength that configures it as a state within a state, the pro-Iranian party of God seems to be the least interested in the reform of the system that Macron defends.

In two gestures towards a country where French culture is still alive, Macron expressed his affection for Lebanon.

He planted a cedar, the national tree that appears on his flag, on the outskirts of Beirut and visited the singer Fairuz, the most recognized female Arab voice after the Egyptian Um Kulzum, who died in 1975. Fairuz, 85, is one of the few iconic characters that transcend sectarian divides among Lebanese, be they Shiite or Sunni Muslim, Christian or Druze.