The new French Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, is expected to arrive in Beirut at the end of this week, according to the Al-Markazia agency on Thursday. This visit was preceded by those of British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
The visit comes at a time when Lebanon is experiencing an influx of European officials who have flocked to Beirut in recent days with the aim of finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict that has raged since October 8 between Israel and Hezbollah and separating the Lebanese question from the war in Gaza, notably by reactivating the issue of the presidential election, which has been stalled since October 31, 2022.
As a reminder, a meeting of the ambassadors of the quintet (France, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Qatar, and Egypt), who are also trying to find solutions to break the presidential deadlock in Lebanon, took place on January 30 in Ain el-Tineh. Following the meeting, the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, declared that “the position (among the ambassadors) is unified,” while describing the meeting as “useful and promising.”
