Tribune. President Emmanuel Macron, Lebanon is fast approaching a total economic and political collapse. The Lebanese are sinking deeper into poverty every day and despair, under the weight of a set of economic and financial crises, aggravated by the double explosion of the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic. For almost a year and a half, the national currency has depreciated by more than 90%, unemployment and inflation have exploded while more than half of the population already lives below the poverty line.
Worse yet, it is in dribbles and at the cost of long waits and humiliations that savers can withdraw, in devalued pounds, a fraction of what is left of their deposits in Lebanese banks. Among these savers is the Lebanese diaspora in Africa and elsewhere, whose transfers of $ 5 billion to $ 7 billion ($ 4.2 billion to $ 6 billion) per year to their country of origin have consequently dried up completely.
For having taken a close interest and with so much determination in the sufferings of the Lebanese, you are in a good position, Mr. President, to measure not only the extent of the distress which overwhelms them, but also the gigantic challenge that this represents for them. absolute necessity to get rid of a political class plagued by corruption and one could not more reluctant to reform – which simple common sense imposes – and which you have not hesitated to denounce since your first visit to Beirut in the aftermath of the disaster port. This endemic and large-scale corruption which scandalously enriched political leaders, by emptying the state coffers and even diverting for their benefit the major part of the foreign financial aid granted to Lebanon after the civil war (1975-1990 ).
Estimated at $ 170 billion over the period 1993-2012, including those granted within the framework of conferences 1, 2 and 3 in Paris, these inflows of capital correspond in terms of purchasing power to all loans. of $ 16.5 billion granted by the United States under the Marshall Plan to fifteen European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, to recover from the rubble of World War II. If we compare the results of the Marshall Plan in Europe to those of the aid given to Lebanon after its civil war, it is no wonder that France and other countries are now refusing to give the Lebanese ruling class blank checks and make it a prerequisite that it implements the required reforms and begins with “Help herself” so that others can help him.
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