France's situation viewed from Lebanon

Writing about France from Lebanon is becoming an increasingly risky exercise. One must first avoid the two main pitfalls.

Avoiding a Lebanese lens

The first consists of viewing the Hexagon through an exclusively Lebanese lens. To see in the crises that have followed one after another in France over the years the direct consequence of a condition that some have called "Lebanization," which manifests in the affirmation of communalism, the disintegration of the state, and an inability to govern.

Comparing situations

While there may be aspects of "Lebanization," this does not allow us to understand, in our view, what is currently at stake in France. The second pitfall is to compare our two situations and conclude that the French are spoiled children who do not understand the chance they have of having a welfare state, despite its dysfunctions, and of living in peace.

New grammar of French politics

This pitfall is all the more difficult to combat because the emergence of a new grammar to describe the French situation, both from the perspective of power and the opposition, is enough to leave stunned anyone who has already lived on the other side of the Mediterranean. When one speaks of "civil war" or "police state," or even goes so far as to question the fact of living in a democracy, no matter how anomalous it may be, it is difficult to find a proper framework for such statements.

L’Orient’s history and role

A Lebanese Francophone newspaper born in 1971 from a merger between L’Orient and Le Jour, it is one of the most widely read foreign-language newspapers in the country and among the Lebanese diaspora, particularly Francophone. Sovereignist and defender of freedoms, especially during the period of Syrian tutelage (1990-2005), it has long been perceived as the newspaper of the Christian right elite.

L’Orient’s transformation

But it has repositioned itself over the last fifteen years, renewing its editorial team and introducing an English version of its website, named L’Orient Today. It remains today one of the newspapers most opposed to the growing influence of Hezbollah, the armed Shia party supported by Iran.