Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri held talks Monday with President Michel Aoun at the Baabda Palace.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is expected to carry with him to the Baabda Palace a complete draft cabinet line-up, sources close to the Presidency said on Monday.

Protesters on Monday staged a sit-in outside the government’s headquarters in Riad al-Solh to denounce plans to end the subsidization of some essential goods, the National News Agency said.

Using megaphones, protesters were venting their anger at the ruling authorities and calling for “toppling them and holding the corrupts and thieves accountable.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, advocate of an initiative to speed the formation of a reform-oriented government in Lebanon, repeated support for the Lebanese people on Monday, saying “they must not stay hostages of any political class.”

“The Lebanese people must not remain a hostage of any political class,” said Macron in remarks he made at a joint press conference from Paris with his Egyptian counterpart Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

Caretaker Hamad Hassan told Independent Arabia on Monday that Lebanon has booked around 2m Pfizer vaccines that will be given to around 30 percent of the Lebanese population.

“Lebanon booked with American Pfizer company around 2 million vaccines to be distributed free of charge to segments of the society as targeted in a plan placed by the company and the Lebanese ministerial committee,” tasked with monitoring the virus, said Hassan.

President Michel Aoun received at Baabda Palace on Monday a delegation of European diplomats, and talks highlighted the situation in crisis-hit Lebanon and the ways to improve cooperation between Lebanon and the EU, the state-run National News Agency reported.

A delegation of French representatives in the European Parliament arrived in Beirut in the past hours to explore the developments on the French initiative towards Lebanon before an expected visit by the French President to the capital, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday.

French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly expected to visit Lebanon before Christmas.

A picture of a toddler girl in an ambulance has gone viral on social media in Lebanon after the parents were killed in a car crash.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday saluted the 40 nations and organizations that took part in the latest international conference for supporting the Lebanese people but he lamented that the closing statement did not mention the “Lebanese state.”

The British embassy in Lebanon clarified in a statement on Saturday that its ambassador to Lebanon, Chris Rampling, will leave Lebanon back to the UK in December and that his departure is due to family reasons.

The embassy assured in a statement that “the British government will continue to enhance stability and security in Lebanon and the region, and a successor to the ambassador will be announced at a later time.”