PARIS
— Lebanon’s absent prime minister arrived in France on Saturday morning
after two weeks in Saudi Arabia, a mysterious stay that touched off
intense speculation that he was being held against his will.
The
prime minister, Saad Hariri, who has not publicly explained the nature
of his stay in Saudi Arabia, met with the French president, Emmanuel
Macron, for lunch at the Élysée Palace and confirmed that he would
travel to Beirut later in the week.
The
meeting with Mr. Macron came hours after a phone call between Mr.
Macron and the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, the French president’s
office said. Officials said that Mr. Aoun had thanked Mr. Macron for
“France’s actions in favor of Lebanon” and confirmed that Mr. Hariri
would be in Beirut for Lebanon’s Independence Day holiday, which is
Wednesday.
Mr.
Hariri later said in statements to the news media that he would
announce his position on the crisis in his country after holding talks
with Mr. Aoun.
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“As
you know, I have resigned and we will speak about this matter there,”
Mr. Hariri told reporters, referring to Lebanon, as he was leaving the
Élysée Palace, where he met with Mr. Macron for over 30 minutes, before
gathering for lunch with his wife, their oldest son and Mr. Macron’s
wife.
After
the meeting, officials in the French president’s office announced that
Mr. Macron was considering gathering in Paris the members of the United
Nations International Support Group for Lebanon, although no specific
date was given.
French
officials refused to say whether Mr. Hariri had explained to Mr. Macron
the reason for his mysterious stay in Saudi Arabia or the circumstances
around the announcement of his resignation.
Mr.
Hariri’s office said earlier on Saturday that his wife, Lara, and their
son Houssam would be present at the lunch in the Lebanese prime
minister’s honor at the Élysée Palace. Mr. Hariri’s wife had accompanied
him on the flight from Saudi Arabia, and his son was said to have flown
in from Britain.
Mr.
Hariri’s two younger children, a 16-year-old daughter, Loulwa, and a
12-year-old son, Abdulaziz, did not appear in television footage of his
arrival. The two have been attending school in Saudi Arabia and could
have stayed behind for that reason, but their apparent absence was an
obstacle to ending concerns that Mr. Hariri was not acting freely. It
left room for speculation that the Saudis had pressured Mr. Hariri to
leave them in the country as leverage.
Mr. Hariri announced on Nov. 4 from Riyadh, the Saudi capital, that he was stepping down as Lebanon’s prime minister,
but officials in Lebanon have said that his departure would not take
effect until he delivered his resignation in person in Beirut.
Mr.
Hariri’s unexpected trip and resignation unsettled the Middle East,
setting off a political crisis in Lebanon and even raising fears of war.
Saudi Arabia was widely seen as pressuring Mr. Hariri to resign as part
of its escalating regional feud with Iran and its effort to isolate
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party that is part
of Mr. Hariri’s coalition government.
Mr. Hariri said he feared for his safety in Lebanon.
With
European diplomats scrambling to defuse the crisis, France seized the
role of mediator. Mr. Macron made a surprise visit to Riyadh on Nov. 9. A
week later, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, met Mr.
Hariri in the Saudi capital.
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Mr.
Macron’s deputy adviser on diplomacy also traveled from Paris to
Lebanon during the crisis, while Mr. Macron was having “direct and
frequent” contacts with leaders in the region, including President Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel, according to officials in the French president’s office.
France has strong ties to Lebanon, where it was a former colonial ruler, and to the Hariri family.
“It’s
an occasion for France to show that it can be an intermediary and have a
role in the crises of the Middle East,” Rima Tarabay, an adviser on
European affairs for Mr. Hariri, said in a phone interview.
But
Ms. Tarabay added that the crisis went beyond Mr. Hariri’s announced
resignation, which has plunged the political situation of Lebanon in
uncertainty.
“We
are facing a very complex situation, not specifically tied to Saad’s
personal issue, but regarding what is going to happen next,” Ms. Tarabay
said, raising concerns about the potential “resurgence of violence in
the region, and a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.”
At
a European Union summit meeting on Friday, Mr. Macron told journalists
that France did not want to choose sides in the Middle East, adding that
“the role of France is to talk to everyone.” However, he urged Iran to
pursue a “less aggressive regional strategy.”
On
Saturday, Mr. Hariri met at his residence in France with two of his
closest advisers, Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk and Nader Hariri, a
senior aide. Many of the prime minister’s most trusted advisers had been
out of touch or only in rare contact with him during his Saudi stay.
At
1:10 a.m. on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Hariri wrote on Twitter that
he was “on the way to the airport.” His tweet mentioned Sigmar Gabriel,
the foreign minister of Germany, who had asked whether the Saudis were
holding Mr. Hariri.
Saudi Arabia later said on Saturday that it would formally protest Mr. Gabriel’s remarks and that it would recall its ambassador to Germany.
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Mr.
Hariri had arrived in Riyadh just as Saudi Arabia’s crown prince,
Mohammed bin Salman, put many of the country’s most wealthy and powerful
men, including some members of the royal family, under de facto arrest in what has been described as an anti-corruption sweep.
His
visit also came as the Saudis accused Iran-backed rebels in Yemen of
firing a missile at Riyadh. It was not clear if Mr. Hariri’s trip was
related to these events.
In
Lebanon, many questions remain, including whether Mr. Hariri will hand
in his resignation or rescind it, and whether the government will be
reorganized.
“The
crisis of the resignation and Hariri’s return is now finished, but a
political crisis has just begun,” Lebanon’s Parliament speaker, Nabih
Berri, said on Friday after news emerged that Mr. Hariri would fly to
Paris.
Regardless
of his next moves, Mr. Hariri will remain beholden to Saudi Arabia. His
personal and family finances are deeply entwined with the country,
which has also backed his party’s extensive political patronage network
and media outlets. But the Saudi gambit to get him to take a more
confrontational approach against Iran and Hezbollah could backfire.
Mr.
Hariri could end up presiding over a caretaker government ahead of
elections planned for next year. Analysts and diplomats said that Saudi
Arabia was likely to gain little more than a renewed rhetorical
commitment from all sides to Lebanese neutrality.
Tension
had been building during the year since Mr. Hariri formed a national
unity government in a deal that brought Mr. Aoun, a political ally of
Hezbollah, to the presidency.
Hezbollah
gained new power and weaponry while helping President Bashar al-Assad
of Syria, another Iran ally, beat back insurgents. Mr. Aoun began
signaling plans to normalize relations with the Syrian government, with
members of his party even meeting with Syrian diplomats in New York
during the annual General Assembly gatherings. That was too much for
some of Mr. Hariri’s allies and supporters, and for Riyadh.
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Mr.
Hariri reached out to Jordan with a request to go to Amman as a safe
haven, a Western official said. The request was denied, the official
said, because the Saudis had pressured Jordan not to accept him.
A spokeswoman at the Embassy of Jordan in Washington denied that such a request had been made.
Assessing
what Mr. Hariri’s stay in France would mean for the crisis in Lebanon
going forward, an official in the French president’s office said the
move had likely contributed to easing the current tensions but was
unlikely, he added, to bring them to any definitive conclusion.
Alissa
J. Rubin and Elian Peltier reported from Paris, and Anne Barnard from
Beirut, Lebanon. Maria Abi-Habib contributed reporting from Washington.
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Lebanese Leader Visits France After Saudi Stay. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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