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France, Valerie Giscard d’Estaing, like the French Emmanuel Macron, yesterday took the initiative to save Lebanon and stop the civil war, just as it is doing today to stop the collapse and prevent the worst. But between the accounts of the Americans, the accounts of regional actors and the madness of local actors, the scenario is the same, although the identities and names of these people differ: Losing the French opportunity and entering Lebanon in a dark tunnel .
Former French President Giscard d’Estaing, who died on Wednesday, December 2, 2020, at the age of 94, is a forgotten story with a burning Lebanon. During its presidential term from 1974 to 1981, France tried to mediate the end of the war that broke out in 1975. However, this attempt was unsuccessful.
Giscard d’Estaing wanted to push for an agreement that would remove the Lebanese barricades and return the Palestinians to their camps in the fall and winter of 1975. He sent former Foreign Minister Maurice Cove to Morville, accompanied by George Görse, on a “mission of friendship and recognition”, which lasted from November 19 to December 2, 1975. The spirit in which De Morville treated all his interlocutors is that mutual concessions must be made for an arrangement that restores security and safety to succeed. stability. In the framework of a balanced approach, the French proposal included ideas on the need for constitutional, social and economic reforms in Lebanon. Based on its adherence to the unity of the country and its rejection of the partition option, Paris urged the Lebanese to reformulate the system of sharing power between the sects, so as to ensure a fair balance between Christians and Muslims. The authorities’ leaders warned against the implementation of reforms that are essential to address living conditions and ensure the achievement of social justice, and to launch a development dynamic that includes all Lebanese regions, in order to avoid deprivation .
On the other hand, France wanted Giscard d’Estaing for the Palestinians to stop their transgressions in Lebanon and to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of this country and facilitating Lebanese-Lebanese reconciliation. In his meeting with Yasser Arafat on November 21, 1975, de Morville said: “There are rights that have been granted to Palestinians in a way that goes beyond the normal rule (of treating) foreigners living in a country. country that is not yours. Ending the civil war requires that each side return to their positions. The Lebanese must be disarmed, but you, the Palestinians, must return to your camps. “
In fact, no one had heard the French proposal. All that de Morville achieved at the time was an imaginary reconciliation between the President of the Republic, Suleiman Franjieh, and Prime Minister Rashid Karami, which quickly dissipated due to the escalation of the camp, the tension, and the reciprocal massacres that enshrined the sectarian separation of regions and the division of Beirut between the two lines of contact, east and west. When military developments almost led to a “strategic boycott”, pushed by the Palestinians and their Lebanese allies, France repeated the attempt to mediate between the warring parties, although this time it was not alone on the scene. Rather, Washington preceded it in late March 1976, by dispatching envoy Dean Brown, who dealt with the so-called implicit “red lines” agreement between Israel and Syria, under which the Syrian army would enter Lebanon.
But France records Giscard d’Estaing’s tireless quest, in the spring of 1976, to promote a political security solution, in which his forces would play a decisive role rather than the sole Syrian regime. Paris sent George Gurs alone this time on a diplomatic mission. While the American envoy, Brown, pushed the idea of establishing a multipolar “consortium” to sponsor the Lebanese solution, with the possibility of including a “military aspect,” Brown told Gurs on April 11, 1976, the latter was rushed, on April 15, to announce an initiative. France maintains that Paris is ready to contribute to the so-called “security surveillance system” and to guarantee a ceasefire and the separation of belligerents.
In fact, this was not a new proposal. The French diplomat had previously discussed in their closed circles, in October 1975, that is, before De Morville’s mission at that time, the idea of sending a “group of international observers” to Lebanon, after obtaining a mandate from the United Nations, to separate the parties in conflict and monitor the implementation of the ceasefire agreement. fire.
As the situation deteriorated, France did not feel completely comfortable with the results of the Syrian intervention. Therefore, he urgently tried to relaunch his initiative between April and June 1976. President Giscard d’Estaing mentioned it publicly during an official visit to the United States of America on May 17-22, 1976. This is what made him some will treat the initiative as Franco-American. During his meeting with the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, on June 21 in Paris, Giscard d’Estaing repeated the French proposal, at a time when the Syrian military intervention was in full swing, with the tacit patronage of the United States. . Days earlier, Giscard d’Estaing had received his Syrian counterpart, Hafez al-Assad, on June 17. He raised the idea of holding a national reconciliation conference among the Lebanese under the auspices of Paris, but was met with Syrian refusal. He also tried to force al-Assad to establish a timetable and thus set a date for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanese territory. But it was in vain.
The parties involved in the Lebanese conflict did not agree with the French initiative. Paris was not willing to intervene in Lebanon without obtaining such wide approval, because it did not want to strain its relations with the Arab countries, especially the oil tankers. He was unable to send his soldiers to drown in the Lebanese quagmire, to fall prey to the militias in the streets and alleys of Beirut. Their condition is that all parties have the desire and the will to stop the fighting, provided that the French blue caps take charge of the separation between them and launch a path of consolidation and then peace-building.
In the end, the French initiative failed in favor of a Syrian-Israeli solution that only served the interests of Damascus and Tel Aviv. Despite this, France did not stop Giscard d’Estaing. When Israel invaded southern Lebanon in March 1978, Paris tried to play a constructive role in achieving peace through its participation in “UNIFIL” forces. However, the persistence of American diplomacy in not pressuring Israel to respect international law and withdraw from all occupied territories after June 4, 1967, and to solve the Palestinian problem by establishing a state for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, prevented the achievement of a just and comprehensive peace. France became a false witness to the armed conflicts and Lebanon continues to suffer from its repercussions to this day.
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Reference: Doctoral thesis of the author of the essay, published in 2016:
Nabil el Khoury, Convergences and rivalries of French and American diplomacy put to the test by the Lebanese crises, 1958-2008, Beirut, Antoine Bookstore, 2016.
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