Macron sends economic reform and rescue road map to Lebanon

French President Emmanuel Macron has sent a road map to Lebanese politicians outlining political and financial reforms needed to unlock foreign aid and rescue the country from multiple crises including an economic meltdown.

The two-page “concept paper” delivered by the French ambassador to Beirut, and seen by Reuters News Agency, laid out detailed measures, many of them long demanded by foreign donors.

They include an audit of the central bank, appointment of an interim government capable of enacting urgent reforms, and early legislative elections within a year.

A French Foreign Ministry official declined to comment. Macron’s Elysee office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Lebanon’s now-caretaker government, which took office in January with the support of Hezbollah and its allies, failed to make progress in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout due to inaction on reforms and a dispute about the size of financial losses.

The government resigned over this month’s huge Beirut port explosion that killed at least 180 people, injured some 6,000 and destroyed entire neighbourhoods, and renewed protests against a political elite for endemic corruption and mismanagement that has led to a deep financial crisis.

On Wednesday, the severity of Lebanon’s worsening economic downward spiral was underlined by official data that showed the country’s inflation rate soared to 112.4 percent year-on-year in July – before the port explosion. 

“The priority must go to the rapid formation of a government, to avoid a power vacuum which will leave Lebanon to sink further into the crisis,” the French paper reads.

It lists four sectors in need of immediate attention: humanitarian aid and the authorities’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic; reconstruction after the August 4 blast; political and economic reforms and an early parliamentary election.

It also called for progress in IMF talks and United Nations oversight on international humanitarian funds pledged to Lebanon in recent weeks, as well as an impartial investigation into the cause of the detonation of vast amounts of highly explosive material stored unsafely at the port for years.

Macron visited Beirut shortly after the blast and made it clear that no blank cheques would be given to the Lebanese state if it did not enact reforms against waste, graft and negligence.

Since then, he has held multiple phone calls with major political leaders under the country’s sectarian power-sharing system, a Lebanese political source said. Macron is due to return to Beirut on September 1.

Political rivalries and factional interests have prevented the formation of a new government able to tackle the financial crisis that has ravaged the currency, paralysed the banking system and spread poverty.

The French concept paper stresses the need for an immediate and full audit of state finances and reform of the power sector, which bleeds public funds while failing to provide adequate electricity.

Parliament should enact laws needed to effect change in the interim period, it said. “Factions must be engaged to vote on the key measures that the new government will take in the next few months.”

The road map could deepen France’s role in Lebanon, a former French colony.

The paper states that Paris will play a significant role in rebuilding Beirut port, bolster healthcare, send teams from its treasury and central bank to support the financial audit, and help organise early parliamentary voting, along with the European Union.