| French Embassy, Beirut | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | Lebanon |
| Address | Espace des Lettres, Damascus Road, Ras El-Nabaa, Beirut |
| Coordinates | 33°52′49″N35°30′46″E / 33.88028°N 35.51278°E Coordinates: 33°52′49″N35°30′46″E / 33.88028°N 35.51278°E |
| Ambassador | Anne Grillo |
| Website | lb |
The French Embassy, Beirut is the chief diplomatic mission of France in Lebanon. Its ambassador has been Bruno Foucher since 2017. [1]
The Pine Residence, built in 1916, hosted the high commissioner of France in the Levant (known today as Lebanon and Syria) from 1919 to 1945, before becoming the ambassador's residence in 1946.
A car bomb exploded inside the French embassy compound in Beirut on the morning of 24 May 1982. It killed ten Lebanese people and two French people; it injured another 27. [2] [3]
In October 1990, General Michel Aoun, while combating the Syrian invasion, took refuge at the embassy before going into exile in France.
The French embassy, including the general consulate of France and the cultural and economic services, are today in Espace des Lettres, Damascus Road in Beirut, which was the demarcation line between the Christian and the Muslim neighborhoods during the Lebanese Civil War. The new diplomatic chancellery building was integrated into the numerous pavilions in the Cité Bounoure, the old École des Lettres de Beyrouth.
Built in 2003 by the architects Yves Lion and Claire Piguet, it integrates Jean-Charles Moreux and André Leconte's colonnade built in the 1950s, walls built with Ramleh rocks and glass structures in the middle of hundred years old pine and olive trees. The building was meant to be secure while keeping an aesthetic look.
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. As of 2014, Greater Beirut has a population of 2.2 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region and the thirteenth-largest in the Arab world. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. Beirut has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years, making it one of the oldest cities in the world. The first historical mention of Beirut is found in the Amarna letters from the New Kingdom of Egypt, which date to the 15th century BC.
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon, lasting from 1975 to 1990 and resulting in an estimated 120,000 fatalities. As of 2012, approximately 76,000 people remain displaced within Lebanon. There was also an exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon as a result of the war.
The Islamic Jihad Organization – IJO or Organisation du Jihad Islamique (OJI) in French, but best known as "Islamic Jihad" for short, was a Shia militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War. They demanded the departure of all Americans from Lebanon and took responsibility for a number of kidnappings, assassinations, and bombings of embassies and peacekeeping troops which killed several hundred people. Their deadliest attacks were in 1983, when they carried out the bombing of the barracks of French and U.S. MNF peacekeeping troops, and that of the United States embassy in Beirut.
Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, alias al-Hajj Radwan, was the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and number two in Hezbollah's leadership. Information about Mughniyeh is limited, but he is believed to have been Hezbollah's Chief of Staff and understood to have overseen Hezbollah's military, intelligence, and security apparatuses. He was one of the main founders of Hezbollah in the 1980s. He has been described as "a brilliant military tactician and very elusive".
On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF), a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers.
The Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) was an international peacekeeping force created in August 1982 following an 1981 U.S.-brokered ceasefire between the PLO and Israel to end their involvement in the conflict between Lebanon's pro-government and pro-Syrian factions. The ceasefire held until June 3, 1982 when the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to London. Israel blamed the PLO and three days later invaded Lebanon. West Beirut was besieged for seven weeks before the PLO acceded to a new agreement for their withdrawal. The agreement provided for the deployment of a Multinational Force to assist the Lebanese Armed Forces in evacuating the PLO, Syrian forces and other foreign combatants involved in Lebanon's civil war.
The Syrian occupation of Lebanon began in 1976, during the Lebanese Civil War, and ended in 2005 following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.
The April 18, 1983 United States embassy bombing was a suicide bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 32 Lebanese, 17 Americans, and 14 visitors and passers-by. The victims were mostly embassy and CIA staff members, but also included several US soldiers and one US Marine Security Guard. It was the deadliest attack on a US diplomatic mission up to that time, and was considered the beginning of Islamist attacks on US targets.
Lebanon–United States relations are bilateral relations between the Lebanese Republic and the United States of America.
France–Lebanon relations are the international relations between the Lebanese Republic and the French Republic. France, the former colonial power, enjoys friendly relations with Lebanon and has often provided support to the Lebanese. The French language is widely spoken fluently throughout Lebanon and is taught as well as used as a medium of education in many Lebanese schools. Both nations are members of the Francophonie.
Bachir Pierre Gemayel was a Lebanese Maronite militia commander and politician who was elected President of Lebanon in 1982, a member of the Kataeb Party, also known as the Phalange Party, and the son of its founder Pierre Gemayel.
Badaro is a well-known residential neighbourhood and business hub in the heart of Beirut. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by the Pierre Gemayel avenue on the north, the Hippodrome on the west, Sami el Solh avenue on the east, Beirut's pine forest on the south east and the Tayyouneh roundabout on the south. Badaro is the common name of Beirut's "Horsh" (park) administrative district which also includes three parks: a 75 acres (30 ha) pine forest known as Horsh Beirut, the Beirut Hippodrome and the Pine Residence, the French ambassador's residence.
The Pine Residence, located in the Horsh district of Beirut, is the official residence of the French ambassador to Lebanon. The palace holds particular historical importance since General Henri Gouraud declared the creation of the state of Greater Lebanon on September 1, 1920 from its porch.
The Siege of Beirut took place in summer 1982, as part of the 1982 Lebanon War, which resulted from the breakdown of the ceasefire effected by the United Nations. The siege ended with the Palestinian Liberation Organization being forced out of Beirut and the rest of Lebanon.
The Iranian embassy bombing was a double suicide bombing that occurred in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on 19 November 2013. The two bombings resulted in 23 deaths and injured at least 160 others.
On December 15, 1981, the Iraqi Shi'a Islamist group al-Dawa carried out a suicide car bombing targeting the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The explosion leveled the embassy and killed 61 people, including Iraq's ambassador to Lebanon, and injured 110 others.
On 12 November 2015, two suicide bombers detonated explosives in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, that is inhabited mostly by Shia Muslims. Reports of the number of fatalities concluded that 43 people died directly from the detonation. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks.
On 22 April 1982, a powerful car bomb detonated on Rue Marbeuf in the 8th arrondissement of Paris in France during the morning rush hour. It killed a young woman and injured 60 other people. The apparent target was the offices of the Lebanese newspaper Al-Watan al-Arabi.
The Embassy of the Philippines in Beirut is the diplomatic mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the Lebanese Republic. Opened in 1996, it is currently located at the W Building on Rue Mar Geries in the southern Beirut suburb of Hadeth, part of the Baabda District in the Mount Lebanon Governorate.
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1 No diplomatic relations with France, functions as an informal diplomatic mission | ||
