French Companies Willing to Help Rebuild Blast-hit Beirut Port

The Mouvement des entreprises de France (Movement of the Enterprises of France, MEDEF) announced that French companies are ready to work alongside the Lebanese people in a project to rebuild Beirut’s port after the devastating monster explosion on August 4, LBCI TV station reported on Thursday.

“Of course, from a purely economic point of view, Lebanon is a small market, but the challenge does not lie here,” said MEDEF president Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux in a speech at the opening of MEDEF summer university.

Bézieux said the challenge is that “Lebanon is one of the last democratic and multi-religious countries in the Middle East. It embodies a certain idea of the world and civilization that must be preserved."

His remarks come a few days before French President Emmanuel Macron’s second visit to Lebanon in less than a month.

Macron, the first world leader to visit the country after the blast, will return to Beirut next week to press for reform and reconstruction.

Macron will depart Monday for a full day of meetings Tuesday in a bid to boost the reconstruction effort but also looking at political issues as Lebanon searches for a new government, the French presidency said.

MEDEF is the largest employer federation in France. Every year, MEDEF International organises a number of delegations of French business leaders with tangible projects to targeted countries, especially developing countries.