Hawzah News Agency - Paris expected that the stance of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah on French President Emmaneul Macron’s accusations of ‘betrayal’ would have been harsher, sources told Al-Manar.

Last week, French ambassador to Lebanon Bruno Foucher met Hezbollah’s international and Arab relations chief Ammar Al-Mousawi.

The meeting with the outgoing French envoy took place a day after Sayyed Nasrallah’s speech in which the Resistance Leader said that Macron was welcome as a friend by nit as a guardian and ruler of Lebanon. Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed Hezbollah’s commitment to Macron’s initiative aimed at ending the political crisis in Lebanon caused by forming the new government.

Well-informed sources of the meeting told Al-Manar that Paris expected harsher stance by Sayyed Nasrallah, noting that Hezbollah Secretary General’s speech was closely monitored by the Elysee Palace.

“This indicates that Paris knows very well accusations that Hezbollah has been hindering the formation of the new government were baseless,” one of the sources told Al-Manar.

During the meeting with Al-Mousawi, Foucher agreed on most of the points raised in Sayyed Nasrallah’s speech, describing some of them as ‘totally right’, according to the source.

The French envoy, however, said that Macron was expecting Hezbollah to show more facilitation in the issue of government formation, but Al-Mousawi’s response was clear: “Are we expected to cancel ourselves?”

The sources also added that Foucher agreed stances announced by Saudi’s King Salman against Hezbollah and fresh sanctions by the US administrations against former Lebanese ministers negatively affected Macron’s initiative.