“Profiters”, “rent”, “villainous system”, “deadly game of corruption”, “collective betrayal”. An icy anger, carrying waves of contemptuous remarks, crossed the Elysée, Sunday, September 27. Emmanuel Macron expressed all his frustration at the inability of the Lebanese parties to form a government, during an extraordinary press conference, like his investment for nearly two months with the Lebanese people, faced with an entanglement of seizures. “I am ashamed of your leaders. I am ashamed “, hammered the French president.
The challenge on Saturday of Mustapha Adib, the prime minister responsible for forming a new cabinet, replacing that of Hassan Diab, collateral victim of the gigantic explosion of August 4, opens a new phase of political uncertainty. The former diplomat, “A respectable and sincere man” according to Mr. Macron, was to form a “Mission government”, composed of specialists and not of political leaders assimilated to a clan and its interests. This enterprise has been smashed against the wall of calculations and sectarian rivalries. But Mr. Macron believes that his mediation approach does not make him a co-responsible. “Failure is theirs. I have the right not to take it for myself. I did the best I could. “
A fragile hope
1er September, back in the Lebanese capital, the French president had torn from the local parties a roadmap, a calendar of reforms for the coming months, a methodology. In short, a fragile hope. The first step was to appoint the government crew, supposed to review the organization of the water and electricity sector, public markets, the port of Beirut, and all the other priorities identified for years. The Elysée followed the consultations between parties step by step, while ensuring that France did not have to meddle in the appointment of ministers. This is where the surveillance of the Lebanese political class reached its limits.
The fifteen-day deadline for forming a government, originally mentioned by Paris, was not respected. Mr. Macron’s entourage then accepted the extensions, the goal to be achieved more important than the time to achieve it. “No one has lived up to the commitments made on 1er September “, noted this last Sunday, like a professor criticizing a class of dunces, who do not have to answer in front of him, even if they had favorably received his intervention.
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