French President Emmanuel Macron gathered Tuesday evening with representatives of the country's top nine political blocs in the second such talks since the blast disaster. 

Representatives of Hizbullah, designated by the U.S. and European countries as a “terrorist” group, were among those meeting Macron. 

President Michel Aoun on Tuesday announced that he is committed to seeking the establishment of a “civil state” in Lebanon.

“I hope our pains will become a motivation pushing us to turn into a civil state, in which competency would be the standard and the law would be the guarantee for equal rights,” said Aoun in a speech at a Baabda lunch banquet thrown in the honor of visiting French President Emmanuel Macron.

All 25 suspects identified by a probe into the devastating August 4 Beirut explosion are now in the custody of Lebanese authorities, a judicial source told AFP on Tuesday.

Authorities had already detained 21 suspects over the portside blast, which killed more than 180 people, wounded at least 6,500 others and wreaked devastation across the capital.

Fierce clashes erupted Tuesday evening between security forces and anti-government protesters near parliament’s building in central Beirut.

The confrontations followed a peaceful larger rally at the nearby Martyrs Square where speeches were delivered by representatives of the protest movement against a ruling class seen as being responsible for the economic collapse and port explosion.

Under pressure from its citizens and Western powers, the leaders of multi-confessional Lebanon have vowed to abandon a power-sharing system that is widely seen to plague political life.

French president Emmanuel Macron will return to Lebanon in December for his third visit to the crisis-hit country since a devastating August explosion in Beirut, the French presidency told French news agency AFP on Tuesday.

Macron, who landed in the Lebanese capital on Monday for a two-day trip, has taken center stage in an international push for long-overdue reforms.

French President Emmanuel Macron issued a stern warning to Lebanon's political class Tuesday, urging them to commit to serious reforms within a few months or risk punitive action, including sanctions, if they fail to deliver.

Macron is on a two-day visit to Lebanon, marking the country's centenary and holding talks with officials on ways to help extract it from an unprecedented economic crisis and the aftermath of last month's massive blast that ripped through the capital Beirut.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday described Hizbullah as a representative of “a part of the Lebanese people,” as he denied being behind the nomination of Mustafa Adib for the PM post.

“I don’t know the man, who was designated following binding parliamentary consultations… and we hope he enjoys the needed competency,” Macron told reporters at the blast-hit Beirut port.

The army intervened after gunshots were fired in Khalde Tuesday following the return to the area of a man involved in the recent sectarian clashes there.

“Gunshots were fired in the Khalde area at the southern entrance of Dawhet Aramoun,” the National News Agency said.

Visiting French President Emanuel Macron said Tuesday he is ready to host a second aid conference for blast-hit Lebanon next month.