US, France urge Lebanese parliament to act on president

The United States and France have encouraged Lebanese lawmakers to work together to select a new president at Wednesday's presidential election session.

Lebanon's parliament will convene on Wednesday to try to elect a president, a position that has been vacant for eight months, but lawmakers remain sharply divided on the candidate.

"We press the country's leadership to adopt a sense of urgency in meeting the critical needs of the Lebanese people, starting with the selection of a president," U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday.

He said that Victoria Nuland, the State Department's number three official, spoke to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to welcome his efforts to ensure a quorum to elect a president.

In France, foreign ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre called on lawmakers to "take this date seriously."

"We continue to call for a way out of the crisis, which has been our message for eight months, and not to waste another opportunity," she told reporters.

French President Emmanuel Macron has named former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as a special envoy on Lebanon in hopes of stepping up diplomacy.

Lebanon, long divided on sectarian lines, has been hit both by a political void and a major economic crisis.

Hezbollah and its allies are backing the pro-Damascus Suleiman Franjieh for president but they do not hold enough votes.

Christians have meanwhile rallied around Jihad Azour, a former finance minister who recently stepped down from his current job heading the Middle East and Central Asia department at the International Monetary Fund.