President Michel Aoun received on Thursday the former French President Francois Hollande who plans to make a series of meetings with Lebanese officials to discuss the economic aid for Lebanon agreed at the CEDRE support conference last year.

Hollande had arrived Wednesday in Beirut and met with Prime Minister Saad Hariri who threw a banquet in his honor.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri held talks Sunday with a number of world leaders after arriving in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh to take part in the first Arab-European Summit.

Hariri is accompanied by the ministers Jebran Bassil, Ali Hassan Khalil and Wael Abu Faour and ex-minister Ghattas Khoury.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri and ex-PM and influential Tripoli MP Najib Miqati are likely to strike an alliance in order to secure the win of Dima Jamali in the northern city's parliamentary by-election after her seat was revoked by the Constitutional Council.

As per the new electoral law, the vote will be held under the winner-takes-all system and not proportional representation since competition is only over one seat. Also according to the new system, the polls will also held in Tripoli alone and not in the bigger Tripoli-Dinniyeh-Minieh district as happened in the 2018 elections.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party chief ex-MP Walid Jumblat held talks Thursday evening at the Center House, after the latest war of words between them was contained.

“We will discuss topics that we disagree on and others that we agree on,” said Jumblat upon his arrival at the Center House.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday stressed that he and his political movement will always remain the “guardians” of the 1989 Taef Accord, which ended Lebanon’s civil war, as he emphasized that he will not accept to “hand over” the Syrian refugees to Damascus “as hostages.”

“Today, we gather, 14 years after the assassination crime, and 11 years after the start of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The dream of Rafik Hariri is still with us after all these years and his reconstruction, development and stability project is still being mentioned by each Lebanese who wants to see the country full of work,” said Hariri at Beirut’s Seaside Arena in a speech marking the 14th anniversary of the assassination of his father, ex-PM Rafik Hariri.

On the eve of the 14th anniversary of the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri, Prime Minister Saad Hariri has stressed that he has not “changed” his political views and stances.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri recited the Cabinet’s policy statement on Tuesday during a parliament session dedicated for a government vote of confidence.

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat held talks Sunday with Speaker Nabih Berri and addressed a new jab at Prime Minister Saad Hariri despite the latest "pacification" between them.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Sunday reassured Prime Minister Saad Hariri during a meeting in Dubai that Paris is committed to pay what it had pledged at the CEDRE economic conference.

“We discussed the means to implement the reforms in Lebanon and I wanted to stress to PM Hariri that France fully supports the implementation of these reforms,” Le Maire said after the meeting.

The former coordinator of the March 14 General-Secretariat, ex-MP Fares Soaid, on Tuesday called for forming an “opposition front” against Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil and Hizbullah, as an unprecedented war of words between Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblat continued to flare up.

“I understand the dismay of certain political parties over the firmness of the alliance between PM Hariri and President (Michel) Aoun-Bassil and I call on them to rise up, seeing as they have parliamentary blocs, they are leaders of respectable parties, they own media outlets and they enjoy Arab and foreign ties,” Soaid tweeted.