France expands its activities. will invite other presidential candidates

The French mediation efforts over picking a presidential candidate for Lebanon continues .

According An Nahar news website France decided to invite more presidential candidates .

This reportedly does not mean that the visit of the head of the “Marada Movement” chief Suleiman Franjieh to Paris ended his chances for being considered for the position . On the other hand his visit did not help him In improving his standing , An Nahar added

In other words he is still being considered , but this time he will be compared to other candidates .

This means that the formula that the French initiated in offering a package that included Franjieh as the president and ambassador Nawwaf Salam as the PM is reportedly dead

This also means that several candidates will be soon heading to Paris to meet the French officials who are handling the Lebanese file .

The list of candidates that will be receiving has not been made public . France reportedly is coordinating with its partners this issue

We will know more on Monday after the Qatari delegation arrives and meets with the Lebanese officials . Qatar is reportedly coordinating this visit with Saudi Arabia

Franjieh quizzed

Franjieh , the presidential candidate of the Iranian backed Hezbollah militant group was reportedly quizzed by the French and was asked to provide certain guarantees before endorsing him .

One of the guarantees Franjieh offered was that that he would not block the work of the reformist government, in rescuing the country from its economic crisis “

But Hezbollah reportedly objected to that because the party is opposed to any IMF involvement .

This according to observers indicates that Franjieh will not be his own man, like president Aoun before him and any guarantee he will offer is worthless , since the last decision will be Hezbollah’s

His trip comes few days after Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt headed to Paris to meet with French president Emanuel Macron

Jumblatt’s trip to Paris is aimed at agreeing on a unifying candidate to end the presidential crisis,

The problem for Franjieh is twofold: Until now he doesn’t have a majority in parliament that would allow him to win an election, and he is opposed by the three main Maronite Christian parties, which would deny him any communal legitimacy, since presidents come from the Maronite community. 

According to political observers, even in the unlikely event that he could be voted into office, his term would be highly contentious because of hostility from within his community.

Many observers are of the opinion that Franjieh will soon come back to Lebanon and declare that he is not in the running. After all he never officially announced his candidacy, precisely to avoid the humiliation of being forced to backtrack on this front.