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.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Monday hit back anew at Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat, telling him that “tweeting does not make a policy.”

“Certainly the state is not our property, but it also does not belong to any leader or party. Our project is clear and aims to rescue the state from collapse and send the guardians of corruption to retirement,” Hariri tweeted, in response to a tweet by Jumblat.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri stressed in remarks on Saturday that solidarity between the new Cabinet’s components are the major “success recipe” to face the challenges ahead.

“It is time for work. We have many challenges ahead that we have to face. Solidarity is essential for our National Unity government in order to confront the challenges,” said Hariri following the first meeting of the new Cabinet in Baabda.

One day after resolving the government formation gridlock, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said he was proud of the women ministers that were named to allocate four ministries in the new government.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat have agreed to coordinate their actions in the face of the latest Syrian “escalation” against them, media reports said.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri has expressed his approval of several new ideas regarding the format of the new government, Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil announced Monday after Center House talks.

“There are several ideas that are being mulled and they're all negotiable and PM-designate Hariri has expressed his approval of many of them,” Bassil said.

President Michel Aoun will press Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to accept the proposed 32-minister government format as the cabinet formation process enters a “decisive week,” media reports said.

“Work is still ongoing on the five ideas that were proposed by caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil to PM-designate Saad Hariri, including the 32-minister government,” Free Patriotic Movement sources told al-Akhbar newspaper in remarks published Monday.

Speaker Nabih Berri replied to Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri’s remarks about Libya’s absence from the Beirut summit, saying the “major harm was done to Lebanon forty years ago,” in reference to the disappearance of Shiite cleric Imam Moussa al-Sadr which is blamed on Libya.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri on Wednesday expressed regret for the absence of the Libyan delegation from the Beirut economic summit expected in the weekend, affirming that good ties with “ Arab brothers” must prevail.