Jacques Chirac enters the fist on the table

Jacques Chirac enters the fist on the table. At a press conference at the end of an interdepartmental meeting in Toulon attended by Dominique de Villepin and Michele Alliot-Marie and Philippe Douste-Blazy, the head of State warned that the France file "own resolution" to the Security Council of the United Nations to try to reach a ceasefire in the Lebanon. It must be recognized that the discussions between French and Americans in the United Nations in New York, to arrive at a text acceptable to all parties to the conflict, are stalled. Paris is now pressure to make Washington integrates the objections of the Lebanon and the Arab countries to the draft resolution that the two capitals had presented jointly. And that a text be adopted by the end of the week by the Security Council.

The Lebanese Government would inter alia that the resolution provides for the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces in the South of the Lebanon as soon as the cessation of the fighting and the under the control of the United Nations in the disputed sector of farms, occupied by Israel. But the United States remained deaf to these requests, even if they found positive the idea of the Lebanese Government to deploy 15,000 soldiers of the regular army in this region in place of the troops of Hezbollah.

The United States "are working hard to overcome differences" to a resolution of the United Nations, stated yesterday, the White House, which is not "escalation" in violence. Washington acknowledged, however, did not know when the UN Security Council vote a resolution on the Lebanon.

"There is nothing new so far." "We are always at the same point," has deplored, yesterday, for its part, the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, after his encounter with the US Secretary of State Deputy for the Middle East, David Welch, arrived in Beirut from unexpectedly.

Urgent agreement

"Israel and the Lebanon have responded and we must take into account these reactions and consider inter alia the interests the Lebanon and its stability, its unity and its sovereignty, its independence," insisted Jacques Chirac. And a "reserve" of Washington State has made to Lebanese claims, it is immediately warned the US against a waiver "to an immediate ceasefire" would be "the most immoral solutions." "I do not want imagine on the part of Americans, or other", stressed the President. "The draft resolution of the Security Council, on which we reached an agreement with the United States, is a basis of work", he recalled.

There is urgency for Jacques Chirac in what an agreement on a resolution to be quickly found at the United Nations. Left to rush the United States. The Israeli security cabinet yesterday decided an expansion of the ground offensive against Hezbollah in the South Lebanon. The military escalation continues and will be more difficult to stop. Each day brings its lot of destruction and deaths (see page 11).

The head of State also held to stand out from those who, in Europe, rely on the Syria to reach a settlement of the crisis. "The experience led me to not completely trust in the Syria with which we will have to negotiate", he said. He also welcomed the proposal of the Lebanese Government to deploy 15,000 men to the South of the Lebanon, because "it should enable the Lebanese Government to exercise its sovereignty over the whole of its territory."

Device in two times

But Paris still argues for "a device in two phases", the first providing for "a complete and immediate hostilities termination". Then, it will be necessary to "establish the principles and elements of a permanent ceasefire and a political solution in the long term." Once these conditions are met, he raised the possibility of deployment "in a month, for example" of an international force to the Lebanon, to which the France will be ready to participate.

Vacation interrupted

If the one is a centrepiece of the Middle East, Jacques Chirac French diplomacy is much more inclined to firmness that it knows that its commitment allows also to resume the political advantage in France where it appeared weakened in recent months. Further, on the subject, it is not of dissenting voices in all of the political class French. After the interview devoted to the Lebanon conflict granted "World" July 27 the first he has given to the daily in a decade , Jacques Chirac has therefore interrupted his holidays to take, rare, at his vacation a press conference, as to better capitalize on its international experience. And indeed, since the beginning of the events in the Middle East, Jacques Chirac back in the polls in France, after months of uninterrupted falls.