At the UN, the new head of French diplomacy will discuss the “essential de-escalation”
The new head of French diplomacy, Jean-Noël Barrot, “will coordinate” with their main counterparts in New York, “Moving decisively towards the essential de-escalation” in Lebanon, the French Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
The minister, who took office this Monday replacing Stéphane Séjourné, following the formation of a new French government, is scheduled to be in New York in the afternoon for the “high level week” of the United Nations General Assembly.
The statement comes as clashes between Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel have escalated in recent days, raising fears of a full-scale regional conflict fueled by the devastating war in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army announced that it had attacked Lebanon only on Monday. “around eight hundred targets” Hezbollah, which has been launching rockets into Israeli territory for almost a year in support of the Palestinian Hamas, which is at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Jean-Noël Barrot, who “expresses its grave concern at the military escalation in Lebanon and the significant number of civilian casualties”, “I will bring this up this afternoon. [lundi] at the United Nations General Assembly, then with the G7 ministers at the initiative of France »The Quai d’Orsay also reported.
Before the G7 dinner, the minister will participate on Monday in a conference organized in collaboration with UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay on the subject “Fighting anti-Semitism and hate speech through education”.
