On July 22, 2013, all 28 European Union (EU) countries unanimously agreed to add Hezbollah’s military wing to the EU list of terrorist organizations. But less than three months later, Europe has opened its doors to Hezbollah as a special guest. On Oct. 12-14, the French Foreign Ministry received Hezbollah deputy Ali Fayyad of the Lebanese parliament as a guest lecturer for French diplomats, analysts and experts; he explained how Paris was wrong and Hezbollah was right.

Paris held a parliamentary symposium on banning the death penalty in the French Senate. Three Lebanese deputies were invited. One was MP Samir Jisr from the parliamentary bloc of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Jisr is a lawyer, the former head of the lawyers syndicate, and chairman of the parliamentary committee involved in the death penalty issue. The second was MP Ghassan Moukheiber from Michel Aoun’s bloc. Moukheiber is also a lawyer and a civil society activist on human rights. The third guest, Fayyad, is neither a lawyer nor directly involved in the symposium’s topic: TheHezbollah deputy is a social sciences professor.

It soon became apparent that this was an arrangement whereby the three Lebanese MPs went to the Senate, from where the Hezbollah deputy would head toward the French Foreign Ministry. Once there, Fayyad met with officials of the Middle East department and the center of analysis and exploration in the ministry, where he gave a two-hour introduction and question-and-answer session.

According to Hezbollah sources, the French have decided to open up to Hezbollah, the most powerful Shiite organization in Lebanon, and are ready to start a new phase of French and European dialogue with the party, while the party asserts that it is adhering to all its positions and choices.