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French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that a second French soldier had died as a result of a shoot-out over the weekend in southern Lebanon between a UN mission patrolling the area and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
"Corporal Anicet Girardin of the 132nd Cynotechnical Infantry Regiment of Suippes, repatriated yesterday from Lebanon where he had been seriously wounded by Hezbollah fighters, died this morning from his injuries," Mr Macron wrote on X.
The UN interim force in Lebanon, Unifil, described corporal Girardin as "a specialist dog handler". On Saturday, his explosive ordnance disposal team "came under attack while clearing a road in Ghanduriyah to re‑establish access to isolated Unifil positions", it said.
Another soldier, Warrant Officer Florian Montorio, was previously reported by the French President to have died in the in the shooting incident attributed by Mr Macron to Hezbollah members.
Two other French soldiers were wounded, including one who sustained serious injuries.
There are more than 600 French peacekeepers posted as part of the Unifil mission that includes 7,500 personnel from 47 contributing countries.
Speaking alongside Mr Macron in Paris on Tuesday, Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that he was personally following the investigation into the incident "day by day". Mr Macron stressed he wanted swift results and perpetrators to be imprisoned.
Yet Mr Salam cautioned that "conditions on the ground were not easy" and that he could not predict whether it would take "48 hours or one week."
French sources previously told Le Monde that Saturday's incident happened when a French contingent team attempted to remove a roadside bomb despite a group of Lebanese men, affiliated to Hezbollah, telling them to stop. The source said that there had been no prior decision from Hezbollah's central command to attack French soldiers.
Unifil is scheduled to start withdrawing from Lebanon on December 31, after 48 years in the country, following a US veto of the renewal of its mandate . France, which has historic ties to Lebanon as a former mandatory power, has been working on alternative scenarios.
"France is also ready to maintain its commitment on the ground after the scheduled departure of Unifil at the end of the year, alongside its most mobilized partners and within a framework that we will need to define together," Mr Macron said on Tuesday.
Unifil has been operating under increasing difficult conditions since the latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. This started after the Iran-backed militia fired rockets at Israel days after the start of the wider Iran war. Israel has been working on establishing a buffer zone a few kilometres inside the Lebanese border.
Three Indonesian peacekeepers were killed last month - two in a roadside bomb planted by Hezbollah and one as a consequence of an Israeli strike, according to Unifil's preliminary findings.
The Israeli army has also reportedly intimidated French and Italian soldiers by firing warning shots and also pointing their weapons at Unifil's chief of staff, Paul Sanzey, in incidents that have been criticised by Rome and Paris.
