Half a Century of French Political Intervention in Lebanon
Syrian and Iranian Occupations as Threats to Lebanese Statehood (1975–2025)
Abstract
This article analyzes the evolution of French policy toward Lebanon from the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 up to the highly dynamic period of 2020–2025. It addresses a gap in the scholarship by examining France not episodically, but as a consistent actor across four phases: the Lebanese wars, the Pax Syriana, the period of Iranian and Hezbollah ascendancy, and the most recent era marked by regional escalation, the Gaza war, Israel‑Hezbollah clashes, and Lebanon’s prolonged presidential vacuum. Using a comparative‑historical approach combined with process tracing, the study draws on UN documents, French statements, press archives, and secondary literature to map both continuity and change. The findings reveal a recurring pattern, in which France prioritized a state‑centric and institution‑oriented strategy, advancing sovereignty, reform, and accountability through legal and multilateral instruments rather than coercion. This approach, recalibrated in response first to Syrian and later Iranian leverage, proved most effective when political principles and instruments aligned, and ambitions were adjusted to regional constraints.
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