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The conference on Syrian refugees and migrants originally scheduled for today, Tuesday, October 17, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, in the presence of Gebran Bassil, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), has been called off. Bassil was invited by Thierry Mariani, a far-right French EMP.

The conference, entitled “Displacement of the Syrian population: Existential Danger for Lebanon, Imminent Threat for Europe,” was organized by the European parliamentary group Identity and Democracy, which includes the Rassemblement National – a reorganization of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National – in an attempt to restore Bassil’s international reputation. However, Bassil harbored reservations about being invited by a far-right group, as he aspired for an invitation from the European Parliament. According to information obtained by This is Beirut from parliamentary sources in Strasbourg, the orange movement chief canvassed MPs from different parliamentary groups to join Mariani’s invitation in order to strengthen the legitimacy of the conference and the invitation sent to the most hated man in the land of the Cedars. This endeavor failed and backfired, as it antagonized several representatives, including Loiseau.

This lobbying effort also caused a rift between Bassil and the Rassemblement National, which no longer wanted him to attend and used the war in Gaza as a pretext to call off the conference.

Bassil, who was personally in power between 2011 and 2019, constantly criticizes the state, the army and security agencies for what he calls their “inaction.” But the son-in-law of the former President of the Republic – from 2016 to 2022 – seems to have “forgotten” that when the war in Syria broke out and the first waves of refugees fleeing the bloodthirsty barbarism of the Al-Assad regime, Bassil’s ally, arrived, the March 8 government of the time, of which he himself was a member, fell short of lifting a finger to organize the humanitarian and security response. On the contrary, since 2011, a policy of burying one’s head in the sand has been applied, with the belief that the millions of Syrians present on the territory would somehow evaporate. Meanwhile, the refugee issue has been used by Hezbollah, an FPM ally, to push Lebanon to break with its position of positive neutrality and re-establish ties with Damascus and the criminal obstructionist axis.