“The State being failing, it must be circumvented” to help the local population, pleads the director general of the association L’Œuvre d’Orient, Monsignor Pascal Gollnisch, Thursday August 4 on franceinfo, two years after the explosion which ravaged the port and part of the center of Beirut in Lebanon, Monsignor Pascal Gollnisch.
>>”There is still a lot of work”: two years after the explosion of the port of Beirut, the slow reconstruction of the city
He believes that international aid “does not concretely reach the population” currently and that if this continues, violent demonstrations are likely to break out.
franceinfo: How to organize aid to the Lebanese?
Bishop Pascal Gollnisch: Since the State is failing, it must be circumvented to directly affect the social works which are in contact with the population. For example, we have supported places where food is distributed because we are at this point: the Lebanese are hungry, they are in misery! International aid must be able to reach as close as possible to the ground because, today, it does not actually reach the population, except perhaps aid from the French State for schools and hospitals. Everything related to the economy and food is inefficient because the Lebanese state fails to renew itself and become efficient. It must therefore be circumvented.
Is the explosion the only problem facing the Lebanese?
This explosion takes place in a context of multiple crisis in Lebanon: political crisis, financial and economic crisis, security and international crisis.
“These crises have succeeded in breaking the morale of the population and a desperate population is like a volcano: all of a sudden, it can wake up and become explosive.”
Bishop Pascal Gollnishat franceinfo
If there are not a certain number of remedies which are brought quickly, the explosions [de colère] will multiply. The remedies are: a government, a new President of the Republic, but also managing to provide support.
Could the people revolt if this continues?
Yes, there is a time when people will be driven to the greatest exasperation and it will happen. There were demonstrations some time ago, they are likely to renew themselves in a much more violent way. The inability to carry out an investigation into what happened in the port of Beirut to find those responsible is symptomatic of what the Lebanese people are going through: a state unable to move forward.