BEIRUT — French President Emmanuel Macron's new special envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Beirut on Wednesday, the state-run National News Agency reported.
According to the agency, the former foreign minister was received at the airport by French ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo, and a number of embassy staff. He is scheduled to meet with Lebanese officials as part of France’s efforts to break the presidential impasse in the crisis-hit country.
Lebanon, a former French colony, has been without a head of state since former President Michel Aoun’s term ended last October. Since then, the heavily divided parliament has held 12 sessions that all ended in failure to elect a president.
In the most recent attempt to break the deadlock, the country’s largest Christian parties and opposition blocs nominated Jihad Azour, an International Monetary Fund official and former finance minister. In a parliament session held last Wednesday, Azour failed to garner the 65 votes needed to move to a second round. He is going up against Suleiman Frangieh, a close friend of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the candidate of the powerful paramilitary Hezbollah movement and its allies.
