Twenty years ago, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was assassinated in Beirut. This is Beirut revisits the special relationship that this key figure in Lebanese politics had with France, particularly with late President Jacques Chirac.
February 16, 2005. Jacques Chirac arrived at Beirut airport with his wife, Bernadette, to pay tribute to former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, who had been killed in a massive bombing two days earlier. As he stepped off the plane and delivered a speech on the airport tarmac, Chirac condemned the “abominable crime, one that seemed like it belonged to another era.” The former French President added,“I have come today to Beirut to honor a man who was my friend and also a great democrat, a statesman.”
In fact, Chirac was the only Western head of state to attend Hariri’s funeral.
France’s Role Behind the STL
The strong friendship between the two men spanned around 20 years. They first met in the 1980s. At the time, Chirac was the Mayor of Paris and Hariri was a billionaire businessman who had made his fortune in construction in Saudi Arabia.
A few years later, both friends reached the highest positions in their respective countries: Hariri became Lebanese Prime Minister for the first time in 1992, and Chirac was elected President of France in 1995. Chirac's support for Rafic Hariri was especially evident in 2001, when he organized a conference in Paris to help Lebanon with its financial and economic challenges.
During Chirac's presidency, France's position on Syria underwent a significant shift. In September 2004, France, which had previously accepted Syrian control over Lebanon, worked with the United States to pass a UN resolution that implicitly called for the permanent withdrawal of the 14,000 Syrian soldiers stationed in Lebanon. Following Hariri’s assassination, France froze high-level contacts with Syria, which denied any involvement in the attack on the former Lebanese Prime Minister.
According to statements by his former Defense Minister, Michelle Alliot-Marie, Chirac “was convinced that Hezbollah and the Syrian regime were behind Hariri’s assassination” on February 14, 2005.
France also played a key role in the creation of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), an international court established in May 2007 and active from 2009 to 2023. The court’s aim was to prosecute those responsible for the bombing that led to Hariri’s death. The tribunal “held a trial in absentia and found three individuals (…) guilty in connection with the February 14, 2005 attack, sentencing them to five concurrent life imprisonments.”
Until Death
Despite Hariri’s death, Chirac maintained close ties with the Hariri family until the end of his presidency in 2007. More specifically, he received Saad Hariri, one of his sons and future Prime Minister, at the Élysée Palace on May 10, 2007 – his final diplomatic gesture as head of state.
On May 16, 2007, Chirac handed over the presidency to Nicolas Sarkozy, who had been elected 10 days earlier. After leaving the Élysée Palace, Chirac moved into an apartment temporarily lent by the Hariri family, located on Quai Voltaire in Paris. The former French President lived there for several years following the end of his term.
The relationship between the Chirac and Hariri families was such that, following Chirac’s death in September 2019, Saad Hariri, deeply moved, paid tribute to his memory. “I felt a great sadness. The same sadness I felt when I lost my father.” The former Lebanese Prime Minister referred to Chirac as “a friend of my father, a brother to my father. They shared a deep bond. The world has lost a political giant.”
Saad Hariri was also present, along with several other dignitaries and heads of state, at Chirac’s funeral. Furthermore, Lebanon held a national day of mourning on September 30, 2019, in honor of the former French head of state.
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