{"id":2604,"date":"2026-04-05T02:12:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/2604\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:12:06","slug":"hezbollah-is-not-fighting-for-lebanon-says-french-un-envoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/2604\/","title":{"rendered":"Hezbollah is not fighting for Lebanon, says French UN envoy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Live updates: Follow the latest news on the Iran war<\/a><\/p>\n

Hezbollah is operating as an arm of Iran, not Lebanon, France\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations has warned, as intensifying clashes with Israel drag Beirut into a regional war that has killed hundreds of people and displaced more than a million.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The National, Jerome Bonnafont said the militant group\u2019s recent actions underscored its allegiance to Tehran over Beirut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Hezbollah has done after the death of the supreme leader demonstrates that Hezbollah is not fighting for Lebanon. Hezbollah is not fighting for a national cause. It is a proxy of Iran<\/a>. It is acting under the orders of the Iranian regime,\u201d Mr Bonnafont said. \u201cIt is attacking Israel, indifferent to the consequences in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The renewed conflict, which started on March 2 after Hezbollah fired missiles into northern Israel in response to the US-Israeli war on Iran, has caused widespread destruction and paralysed the economy. This has fuelled a deepening a crisis that has gripped Lebanon since its financial collapse in late 2019. The country was already struggling to recover from the previous Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024.<\/p>\n

More than 1.2 million people have been displaced in recent weeks, and at least 1,345 people killed, according to Lebanon\u2019s Ministry of Public Health.<\/p>\n

The escalating violence has also hit UN peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon, killing three Indonesian blue helmets.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Bonnafont said there was \u201csomething extremely tragic\u201d about Hezbollah dragging Lebanon into another war when the country \u201cwas starting to rebuild a political consensus, to rebuild a capacity to reform, to rebuild a national pact\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLebanon should not be a victim of this situation, and Lebanon has to be helped to go out of this spiralling effect,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Bonnafont said that reversing Lebanon\u2019s downwards spiral would require a renewed focus on strengthening state institutions, particularly the Lebanese Armed Forces, which he described as central to restoring sovereignty and stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cHezbollah is a militia. A militia has to be disarmed by the Lebanese state itself,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to help the Lebanese government, the Lebanese Armed Forces be able to disarm, like they have said they want to do, and to neutralise the military capacity of Hezbollah, so that Hezbollah is no longer in a position to be a military ally of Iran against Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

France has long positioned itself as a key diplomatic actor in Lebanon, with which it has deep historical ties. <\/p>\n

But Mr Bonnafont acknowledged that international efforts to support Lebanon have fallen short, even as new initiatives are being prepared.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne cannot simply say that nothing was done,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot more had to be done. A lot more was being prepared, and a lot more will have to be done whenever the situation allows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he argued that the current military escalation offers no viable path forward. <\/p>\n

Hezbollah\u2019s tactics, he said, place civilians at disproportionate risk while accelerating the country\u2019s destruction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is clear for us that the present military escalation is not the solution,\u201d he said. \u201cHezbollah is conducting asymmetric hostilities in which civilians are the first to pay the price, and Hezbollah doesn\u2019t care about the price that civilians pay, or the destruction that the country is suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lebanon\u2019s government, he noted, has taken steps that could mark a turning point in the country\u2019s modern history. <\/p>\n

Officials have formally called for Hezbollah\u2019s disarmament and moved to classify its military activities as illegal, a decision Mr Bonnafont described as \u201chistoric\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means the Lebanese government wants the country to be freed from militias,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this is a basic of the sovereignty of a state.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also pointed to signals from Lebanon\u2019s leadership suggesting a potential diplomatic shift. President Joseph Aoun<\/a>, he said, has expressed openness to direct talks with Israel, a prospect that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a decision expressed by President Aoun himself that he wants direct discussions with Israel,\u201d Mr Bonnafont said. \u201cAnd you know, as well as me, this is also a shift of historic importance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such talks, he suggested, could lay the groundwork for a more stable arrangement between the two countries, centred on mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the key for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Mr Bonnafont pushed back against Israeli rhetoric suggesting the possibility of territorial changes in southern Lebanon, stressing that the country\u2019s borders must remain inviolable.<\/p>\n

\u201cLebanon is a state with a territory,\u201d he said. \u201cThis territory must be integrally guaranteed, and peace between Israel and Lebanon will come with full respect of the territorial integrity of Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it can do so, Mr Bonnafont suggested, will depend not only on internal political will but also on sustained international backing and a de-escalation of the conflict that has once again placed the country at the centre of a volatile regional struggle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Live updates: Follow the latest news on the Iran war Hezbollah is operating as an arm of Iran,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,426,50,63,425,589,588,657,2613],"class_list":{"0":"post-2604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-france","9":"tag-hezbollah","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-lebanon","13":"tag-standard","14":"tag-story","15":"tag-un","16":"tag-us-bureau"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}