The President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron announced the holding of a new international conference devoted to Lebanon, on August 4, one year later, to the day, the explosion of the port of Beirut . As a reminder, this had left more than 200 dead and more than 6,000 injured.
This conference should be devoted to humanitarian aid for the benefit of the Lebanese population and the Lebanese Army, in order to prevent the total collapse of the Land of the Cedars facing an economic crisis of an unknown magnitude in its contemporary history. .
This announcement comes the day after withdrawal of the now ex-prime minister designate Saad Hariri which recorded its failure to form a new government yet necessary for the release of economic aid from the international community, aid conditional on the formation of a cabinet that will have to implement structural, economic, financial and critical monetary policy.
As a reminder, the President of the French Republic visited Lebanon twice in 2020, in particular on August 6, 2 days after the explosion in the port of Beirut. He then denounced, together with a large part of the population, a political class deemed corrupt and incapable of leading a state threatened with collapse and announced the establishment of an initiative to bring the Land of the Cedars out of the crisis. that he was crossing. During his second trip to the Land of the Cedars on the occasion of centenary of the proclamation of Greater Lebanon , September 1, 2020, Emmanuel Macron then revealed the content of his initiative aiming to put in place a government within 4 weeks and received assurances from political parties that this would be the case.
A critical situation and concerns about the collapse of the state
11 months after the resignation of the Hassan Diab government, it is clear that this promise has not been respected by the local political parties which are still stumbling over the distribution of the various ministerial posts. In addition, the implementation of economic reforms is also made difficult by the denial of certain interests to assume their respective responsibilities, such as banks whose losses could even be greater than expected. A final estimate thus evokes sectoral losses of 100 billion dollars for less than 140 billion dollars of deposits in total. Financial difficulties are having a hard impact on the Banque du Liban, which has seen its available monetary reserves reach its critical threshold after having subsidized for years an overvalued local currency. It is not less than 66 billion dollars which thus left Lebanon between 2017 until the establishment of an informal capital control. Since the shortages of essential products including fuels, drugs, some of which are intended for people suffering from chronic diseases or cancer while a controversy is currently brewing between the Ministry of Health and Banque du Liban about its financing, and even food affecting the population.
77% of the population, including 33% of children, would thus no longer have enough to eat , noted a UNICEF report due to the deterioration of the parity between the Lebanese pound and the dollar. The local currency thus lost more than 92% of its value, bringing the minimum wage to less than 30 USD per month against 600 USD barely 2 years before. As for the median salary, it is now less than $ 110 compared to $ 1,500 2 years earlier. 75% of the population, indicate unofficial sources, now live below the poverty line.
This situation has led outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab to believe that collapse would only be a matter of days from now on .
Due to the absence of a government, the parliamentary committee on Defense in France had proposed to place this international aid in the form of a TaskForce placed under the mandate of the UN and the World Bank . It will be a question of maintaining the essential structures of assistance to the population including the public electricity production sector, the hospital sector or the water distribution. Also, further aid should be granted to the Lebanese army when rumors indicate that it will no longer be able to ensure the payment of the salaries of its soldiers from September.
