BEIRUT: France is ready to help Lebanese political parties agree on a president if it was asked to do so, a high-ranking French foreign policy official said Tuesday after meeting Prime Minister Tammam Salam in Beirut.
“The Lebanese must make a final decision and choose a president for their state without foreign intervention,” Jean-François Girault, head of the French foreign ministry’s Middle East and North Africa department, said after the meeting at the Grand Serail.
But “France proposes facilitating the agreement if Lebanon wants that.”
Girault stressed that rival factions must discuss and agree on one name as a consensus candidate for the presidency.
“There should be consensus,” he said.
A long-time Middle East envoy, Girault has served as the ambassador to Syria and Iraq, and worked as a diplomat in Iran.
“The presidential vacuum is entering its seventh month and it’s baffling ... France and many of its partners,” he said. “We should be clear. The presidential election matter is a Lebanese national issue and France does not have any candidates it would veto.”
Lebanon has been without a president since May 25, 2014 when Michel Sleiman’s six-year term ended.
The March 8 bloc backs Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, while the rival March 14 supports Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea.
Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, which belong to March 8, have been calling on March 14 parties to discuss the presidential issue directly with Aoun.
As the head of the largest Christian parliamentary bloc, Aoun holds that he is the most popular candidate among Christians in the country.
He has suggested a constitutional amendment that would allow for a direct popular vote to elect a president, first by the country’s Christians, then by the entire population.
Currently, Parliament votes for the president.
Aoun’s proposal was fiercely opposed by March 14.
He later proposed that he and Geagea face off in a direct vote in Parliament in an election that would bar other candidates.
Lebanese Forces officials said they welcomed the proposal, but could not impose it on other parties.
Other parties have denounced the proposal, saying it was undemocratic to restrict the election to two candidates.
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