Hollande Wraps Up Lebanon Trip with al-Rahi, Qahwaji Talks, Refugee Camp Visit
French President Francois Hollande concluded on Sunday a two-day trip to Lebanon where he met with senior officials and visited a Syrian refugee camp in the eastern Bekaa region.
In the morning, he held separate talks with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and later Army Commander General Jean Qahwahi.
Al-Rahi reiterated during the meeting the need to elect a a president to fill the vacuum that has persisted since 2014.
He revealed according to Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) that he sensed a “seriousness” from Hollande to end Lebanon's crisis.
“Officials should search for the real reasons why parliament has not been able to hold electoral sessions,” he remarked from the Snoubar residence, the headquarters of the French ambassador to Lebanon.
He handed the French official a memorandum on the situation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, the presidential vacuum, and terrorism in the region, said VDL (100.5).
For his part, Hollande said: “France only has one candidate for the presidential elections, and it is Lebanon.”
He then headed to the Bekaa to meet with Syrian refugees at the Dalhamieh camp.
"I just visited a camp the likes of which are all over Lebanon," Hollande told reporters after spending nearly an hour at the camp.
"They (Syrian children) don't want violence. They want to learn and go home, join their families, their country," he said.
Two Syrian families in the Bekaa are expected to be sent to France where they will be naturalized, media reports said.
About 15 Syrian schoolchildren greeted the French president as he entered the large communal tent used as their makeshift school.
They recited a poem in Arabic and gave Hollande pictures they had drawn.
"You will be the messengers of peace... France's children are thinking of you a lot," Hollande told them.
He met with the U.N. refugee agency's Lebanon representative Mireille Girard, who said difficult living conditions were forcing young Syrian children into child labor.
The French president later announced that France will grant Lebanon 50 million euros to support the displaced and underlined the need for a political solution to the crisis in Syria to ensure the safe return of refugees to their homeland.
Hollande also noted that France will keep pushing for the implementation of the Saudi-French agreement on providing the Lebanese army with weapons, which was suspended earlier this year amid high tensions between the kingdom and Hizbullah.
Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor.
Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps have thwarted the polls.
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