‘Love stories cannot always be explained’: France reacts to Macron’s Beirut visit

Praise, scorn and incredulity for the French president’s visit to blast-stricken Beirut

A Lebanese youth hugs French President Emmanuel Macron during a visit to the Gemmayzeh neighbourhood, which has suffered extensive damage due to a massive explosion in the Lebanese capital. AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron (C) visiting the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut, Lebanon. Macron arrived to Lebanon to show support after a massive explosion on 04 August

French President Emmanuel Macron listens to a resident as he visits a devastated street of Beirut. AP Photo

French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he visits the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut. EPA

French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he visits a devastated street of Beirut. AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron surrounded by Lebanese servicemen, visits the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut. AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaks with a woman as he visits the Gemayzeh neighborhood, which suffered extensive damage from an explosion on Tuesday. AP Photo

French President Emmanuel Macron visits the Gemayzeh neighborhood, which suffered extensive damage from an explosion on Tuesday that hit the seaport of Beirut. AP Photo

French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he arrives at the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut. REUTERS

French President Emmanuel Macron visits the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut. REUTERS

French President Emmanuel Macron greets people during a visit to the Gemmayzeh neighbourhood, which has suffered extensive damage due to a massive explosion in the Lebanese capital. AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron wears a protective face mask as he meets Lebanon's President Michel Aoun following Tuesday's blast in Beirut's port area, at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon. Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron greets people during a visit to the Gemmayzeh neighbourhood, which has suffered extensive damage due to a massive explosion in the Lebanese capital, on August 6, 2020. French President Emmanuel Macron visited shell-shocked Beirut, pledging support and urging change after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital in a disaster that has sparked grief and fury. / AFP / ANWAR AMRO

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to the crowd during a visit to the Gemmayzeh neighbourhood, which has suffered extensive damage due to a massive explosion in the Lebanese capital, on August 6, 2020. French President Emmanuel Macron visited shell-shocked Beirut, pledging support and urging change after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital in a disaster that has sparked grief and fury. / AFP / ANWAR AMRO

French President Emmanuel Macron, center, gestures as he visits the Gemayzeh neighborhood, which suffered extensive damage from an explosion on Tuesday that hit the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he visits a devastated street of Beirut, Lebanon, on August 6, 2020 a day after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital in a disaster that has sparked grief and fury. French President Emmanuel Macron visited shell-shocked Beirut Thursday, pledging support and urging change after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital in a disaster that has sparked grief and fury. / AFP / POOL / Thibault Camus

A video grab shows French President Emmmanuel Macron, left, speaking with a member of a French rescue team which arrived overnight to support relief efforts at the port of Lebanon's capital Beirut. AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron visits the site of Tuesday's blast in Beirut. Tele Liban / Reuters

Lebanon's President Michel Aoun meets French President Emmanuel Macron on his arrival at the airport in Beirut. Dalati Nohra/Reuters

Lebanon's President Michel Aoun welcomes French President Emmanuel Macron on his arrival at the airport in Beirut. Dalati Nohra/Reuters

"Lebanon is not alone," Mr Macron tweeted shortly after landing. Dalati Nohra/Reuters

The French president is the first foreign leader to visit the Lebanese capital since an explosion on Tuesday killed at least 137 people. Dalati Nohra / Reuters

Mr Macron said Lebanon was facing a political and economic crisis, and that it would continue to suffer unless it enacted reforms. Reuters

Following Emmanuel Macron’s arrival in Lebanon, France’s chattering classes have backed their leader’s show of support for the stricken nation but some have questioned the French president’s heroic pose.

Mr Macron touched down in Beirut on Thursday, the first Western leader to visit the country since the devastating explosions in the city’s port that killed nearly 150 people, wounded thousands and sent a wave of destruction through the Lebanese capital.

Taking to Beirut’s streets to literally embrace its people, Mr Macron also chided the country’s political leaders. French aid and support for the Lebanese population would be “unconditional”, the French president said. But without the political reforms Paris had been urging for years, he added, “Lebanon will continue to sink.”

The French press has continued to examine the special bond between the two countries. Lebanon and neighbouring Syria became French protectorates in 1920 after the First World War and the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire.

However, the centre-left newspaper Le Monde has said the ties run deeper. Why was Mr Macron the first global leader to show solidarity with the country? "Love stories cannot always be explained," the daily asserted.

The news magazine Paris Match has drawn comparisons between Mr Macron's Beirut visit and his predecessor Jacques Chirac's eye-catching tour of the streets of Jerusalem in 1996. "In Beirut, Emmanuel Macron in Jacques Chirac mode," was the headline in the French glossy.

Mr Chirac also famously rushed to Beirut following the 2005 assassination of his friend Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister.

In January this year, similar comparisons between the two men were made during Mr Macron’s own visit to Jerusalem where he re-enacted Mr Chirac’s famous bust-up with Israeli security forces outside St Anne’s Church. That piece of political theatre, it now seems, was a dress rehearsal for a bigger stage.

Mr Macron’s political rivals have been less supportive. “Intrigued by the president’s speech in Beirut,” Olivier Faure, the leader of the French National Assembly’s left grouping, wrote on Twitter.

“Whatever one thinks of Lebanese leaders, what legitimacy to pose as a saviour?” Why the condemnation so late, putting on a scene in the middle of a tragedy?” Mr Faure asked.

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) meets with Lebanese President Michel Aoun upon his arrival at Beirut airport, on August 6, 2020 two days after a massive explosion devastated the Lebanese capital AFP

Former French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon took aim at the colonialist overtones of Mr Macron’s visit. “Where does this feeling of omnipotence come from? What’s that tone? What is he threatening? What adventure is he leading France on?” he wrote, questioning whether Mr Macron wished to take France on another Libya-style mission like former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

In an earlier tweet, Mr Melenchon was equally condemning. “I warn against interference in the political life of Lebanon. It will not be accepted. Lebanon is not a French protectorate.”

Mr Macron has rejected the prospect of a return to the French mandate, though an online petition calling for a 10-year return of rule from Paris has garnered modest support and the proposition was put to him directly by local leaders on Thursday.

The French journalist and public intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy recently returned from his own controversial adventure in Libya and has defended Mr Macron, hitting out at Mr Melenchon and calling him “grumpy”.

“It is foolishness, after Macron’s journey to Lebanon, to howl at the violation of sovereignty,” he wrote

“As if sovereignty was the right to let oneself fall victim to thugs! And as if flying to the aid of a brotherly people was not, for 20 years, a duty and a right!”