Macron 'ashamed' of Lebanon's political leaders amid crisis

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron assailed Hezbollah and the entire Lebanese political class Sunday, and warned of a new civil war if they can’t set aside personal and religious interests to unlock international aid and save Lebanon from economic collapse.

But Macron said France wouldn’t impose sanctions on anyone in its former protectorate — for now. And he clung to his proposed road map to break Lebanon’s political stalemate despite Saturday’s resignation of its prime minister-designate, which throws Macron’s plan into question.

“I’m ashamed of the Lebanese political leaders. Ashamed,” Macron repeated in a news conference Sunday in which he gave a brutal assessment of Lebanon’s power brokers.

He accused them of “collective betrayal” and choosing “to favor their partisan and individual interests to the general detriment of the country.”

Lebanon's two main Shiite parties, Hezbollah and its ally Amal, led by parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, had insisted on retaining the foreign ministry in the new government and on naming all the Shiite Cabinet ministers. Prime minister-designate Moustapha Adib rejected those conditions and stepped down Saturday, throwing the country into further uncertainty and further delaying foreign aid.

Macron didn’t propose any concrete steps that France might take if Lebanon's Central Bank reserves dry up and the government is no longer be able to subsidize basic goods such as fuel, medicine and wheat.

Macron has been pressing Lebanese politicians to form a Cabinet made up of non-partisan specialists that can work on urgent reforms to extract Lebanon from a financial crisis worsened by the Aug. 4 explosion at Beirut port. Macron has traveled twice to Beirut since then and has made it a personal mission to try to repair the damaged country, raising...