French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna leaving a meeting at the Élysée Palace, Oct. 12, 2022. (Credit: Ludovic Marin/AFP)
BEIRUT — French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna's planned visit to Lebanon on Saturday was postponed until Monday at the last minute due to "technical problems" with her plane, the French Embassy in Lebanon told L'Orient Today.
"Minister Colonna's trip to Lebanon and the region is postponed at this stage, the plane having encountered a technical problem," the embassy's message said.
Later, France's Foreign Ministry announced that Colonna would visit Israel and the Palestinian territories on Sunday and Lebanon on Monday.
The visit's postponement was confirmed by the press offices of Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, with whom Colonna was due to meet on Saturday. According to Mikati's office, the problem with the French minister's plane was reported at the airport in Paris.
Colonna's visit to the region comes as international pressure intensifies to avoid a general conflagration in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which began on Oct. 7 in Gaza and spilled over the following day into southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah and Israel exchange increasingly deadly fire on a daily basis. The fighting has left over 100 people dead in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters, but also more than a dozen civilians, including three Lebanese journalists.
"We must avoid a regional conflagration," stressed Christophe Lemoine, deputy spokesman for the Quai d'Orsay. He added that Colonna would "convey messages of restraint" and "responsibility" to contain the risk of a second front to the north of Israel, after the one to the south in the Gaza Strip.
Behind the scenes, Western countries, notably France and the United States, are working hard to prevent the situation from degenerating, according to diplomatic sources. In Paris, the risk of a conflagration is considered "very real," according to AFP sources.
