Meeting between Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and French President Emmanuel Macron. (Credit: Progressive Socialist Party)
BEIRUT — France is "fully committed" to deescalation between Hezbollah and Israel as the eighth month of fighting along the Lebanese border nears, French President Emmanuel Macron said during a meeting with Druze leader and former head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Walid Jumblatt.
During the Thursday meeting at the Élysée Palace in Paris, Macron "emphasized France's full commitment to de-escalate [the tensions] between Israel and Lebanon, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, and France's historical attachment to the security of Lebanon," according to an Élysée statement released on Friday and shared by Jumblatt's party.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in daily exchanges of fire along the Lebanese-Israeli border since Oct.8, one day after the outbreak of war in Gaza.
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, and Army Chief, Joseph Aoun, met Macron at the Élysée Palace last month to discuss the situation in southern Lebanon as well as French support for the Lebanese Army.
UNSC Resolution 1701, adopted during the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, explicitly empowers the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Lebanese Army to operate and maintain peace along the so-called Blue Line, which demarcates the border with Israel. It also provides for Hezbollah to be kept away from the border in exchange for Israel's respect for Lebanese sovereignty.
Macron also noted "France's continued support and participation" in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and reiterated that France will "continue to provide the Lebanese Army with the support it needs to ensure Lebanon's stability."
France, through its personal envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, remains fully committed, Macron said, to finding a solution to the presidential crisis in close cooperation with Lebanese officials and in coordination with international partners. He also reiterated his call on all Lebanese political parties to "take responsibility to break the current impasse."
Le Drian was appointed last June as France's special envoy for Lebanon, which has been without a president since the end of Oct. 2022.
According to the PSP statement, Jumblatt also met with with Le Drian on Wednesday in Paris and discussed the "current situation and possible ways to find a solution to the current crisis in Lebanon."
Berri
Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on Thursday that he would respond sometime on Friday or Saturday to the latest amended version of a plan for deescalation in the South presented to him by the French government.
Berri said the French document "contains some acceptable elements and some unacceptable ones, which need to be amended." He also told the newspaper he was astonished upon receiving the document, to find that it was written not in French, but in English.
France had put forward a first initiative for de-escalation last February, but Hezbollah had judged it too favorable to Israel.