Macron: Lebanon leaders promise crisis cabinet in 15 days

Lebanon's embattled leaders have pledged to form a crisis cabinet within two weeks to push forward with key reforms, French President Emmanuel Macron has said, as he concluded his visit to the disaster-hit country.

Macron was in Beirut for a second time since an August 4 explosion there which killed more than 180 people, laid waste to entire city districts, and fuelled popular rage against the country's political elite.

He attended muted celebrations marking the centenary of Greater Lebanon, shortly after political leaders settled on a new prime minister, Mustapha Adib, to form a cabinet and lead the country out of political turmoil and an economic crisis that was already crippling the country before the portside blast.

"What all political parties without exception have committed to this evening right here, is that the formation of this government will not take more than 15 days," he said.

Macrons warns of sanctions

Macron set himself an ambitious goal for his return visit: to push for deep change, but without being seen as meddling in the former French mandate.

"This is the last chance for the Lebanese system," he warned earlier.

"It's a risky bet I'm making, I am aware of it... I am putting the only thing I have on the table: my political capital," he told the news website, Politico.

Macron said he expected the government to start delivering on a roadmap of reforms within six to eight weeks.

"There is no blank cheque," Macron told a news conference in the Lebanese capital. If reforms, including an audit of the central bank, were not being passed within that deadline, international aid would be withheld, he added.

The French leader arrived on Monday, just hours after Adib, a little-known 48-year-old academic and former ambassador to Germany, was designated to form a government.

READ MORE: PM-designate Mustapha Adib urges reforms in crisis-hit Lebanon

New aid conference

Macron, who has described his stance towards Lebanon's political establishment as "demanding without interfering", said it was not his place to "approve" of Adib's designation.

Adib, whom he met late on Monday and again on Tuesday, "has to be given all the tools to succeed... so he can implement reforms" long demanded by the international community, Macron said.

Macron said he would return to Lebanon in December to follow up on progress.

Macron had kicked off his trip not by visiting political leaders, but by spending more than an hour Monday with singing legend Fairuz, who at 85 is a rare unifying figure in Lebanon.

On Tuesday, Macron attended a series of events to mark 100 years since French mandate authorities proclaimed the creation of Greater Lebanon.

In the Jaj forest northeast of Beirut, he planted a cedar tree, Lebanon's national symbol, to express "confidence in the future of the country," his office said.

Macron also returned for a second visit to Beirut port, ground zero of the colossal blast.

He oversaw aid distribution from a French helicopter carrier and met French soldiers working with the Lebanese army to clear thousands of tonnes of debris.

The French air force jets flew overhead, leaving trails of red, white and green smoke, the colours of the Lebanese flag.

Some on social media criticised the aerial manoeuvre, saying it could trigger traumatic memories among people who experienced the port blast and the 1975-1990 civil war.

READ MORE: Exclusive: EU set for deeper intervention plan in Lebanon

'A new Lebanon'

The Beirut explosion compounded Lebanon's worst economic crisis since the war, which has reached the point where the UN has warned that more than half of the population risk food shortages by the end of the year.

On August 9, international donors pledged over around $300 million in emergency aid, during a video conference jointly organised by France and the United Nations.

Macron said he was ready to host a second Lebanon aid conference next month.

Activists have blamed the country's entrenched political class for the August 4 explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate fertiliser that had languished in the port for years.

They have already rejected the choice of Adib as premier, charging that he is too close to established political circles.

On Tuesday, hundreds of protesters called for the proclamation of a secular state, to replace the multi-confessional country's sectarian power-sharing system.

READ MORE: World Food Programme to send 50,000 tonnes of wheat flour to Beirut

Hezbollah has 'popular base'

Clashes erupted in the evening, sparking condemnation from activists who denounced the police for beating protesters and alleged that French tear gas had been used.

Macron, after meeting President Michel Aoun, gathered with representatives of the country's top nine political blocs in the second such talks since the blast disaster.

Representatives of the powerful Shia Muslim Hezbollah movement, designated by the US as a terrorist group, were among those meeting Macron.

Macron said Hezbollah, which is part of a bloc that has a majority in parliament, "is probably in parliament because of intimidation but also because other forces have failed to run the country well."

"But it has a popular base and that is the reality," he said.

Nonetheless, "with Hezbollah there is a discussion that needs to be initiated," with regards to disarmament, Macron added.

"This is exactly the discussion we had an hour ago (and) it should not be a taboo," he said.

READ MORE: In post-explosion Lebanon, Hezbollah has the most to lose