Report: Macron, Bin Salman Want ‘Credible’ Govt in Lebanon

The French presidency announced that President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who met on Thursday, share "the same desire to see a credible government" in Lebanon to bring it out of its acute crisis, media reports said Friday.

The two men consider it necessary for Lebanon to form a government "capable of implementing a road map for the reforms required for advancement, which the Lebanese political leaders have pledged to adhere to,” it added.

Forming a government in Lebanon "is a condition for mobilizing long-term international assistance,” it said.

PM-designate Saad Hariri was tasked to form a government in October last year after the resignation of now caretaker PM Hassan Diab’s government following the colossal Beirut port explosion.

Last year Macron proposed a road map to break the political stalemate in the former French protectorate. Macron has been pressing Lebanese politicians to form a Cabinet made up of non-partisan specialists that can work on urgent reforms to extract Lebanon from a financial crisis worsened by the Aug. 4 explosion that devastated Beirut.

Those efforts have led to nowhere as Lebanon’s politicians continue to bicker about the shape and size of a new Cabinet while the country is mired in the worst economic crisis in its modern history — a situation exacerbated by pandemic restrictions.