Visiting Beirut following the horrific and devastating port explosion on 4 August, French president Emmanuel Macron was surrounded by a crowd demanding that he not direct aid through the country's entrenched - and widely despised - political class.
He told Beirutis that France would lead in efforts to help, but that a "new political order in Lebanon" was needed.
This message resonated with Lebanese citizens, who blame this and previous governments for serial mismanagement, incom...
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Kurt Bassuener is co-founder of the Democratisation Policy Council, a Berlin-based think-tank. Senada Šelo Šabić is senior research associate at the Institute for Development and International Relations in Zagreb.