France announces reopening embassy in Libya

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday that his country would reopen its embassy in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, next Monday.

“From Monday, our embassy in Tripoli will be reopened and our ambassador will be able to return to your country,” conveyed Macron to President of the Libyan Presidential Council Mohamed Al-Menfi, in Paris.

In 2014, the French diplomatic mission office in Libya closed, although it remained active.

Macron stated: “France’s support will not be merely verbal. It will be full support,” adding that France owes: “A debt to Libya and the Libyans, which is a decade of disorder.”

Oil-rich Libya has been plunged into chaos since Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow and his death in 2011 in a NATO-backed uprising, which led to a multi-power struggle.

A unified transitional authority in Libya emerged from a United Nations (UN)-sponsored peace process launched in November in Tunis, which was voted on in Geneva and approved by Libya’s parliament on 10 March.

On Tuesday, the alternative government in eastern Libya handed over power to the new national unity government led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, a week after the latter officially took office.

Macron confirmed that he would meet Dbeibeh soon.

READ: Some Libyans do not want democracy 10 years after NATO forced it upon them 

The French president indicated that it would be impossible to achieve regional stability without bringing peace to Libya, while announcing that France would put the Libyan issue on the table at the European Union (EU) summit on Thursday.

He asserted: “This is a colossal political, democratic, military, security and economic agenda. Our responsibility is to achieve European unity to get there. I will do everything in my power with our Italian and German friends and the whole EU to act together as Europeans in the service of this agenda.”

Macron again stressed the need for evacuating foreign forces in Libya.

He emphasised that: “Foreign forces should leave Libyan territory as soon as possible,” with reference to the Turkish and Russian forces, because: “Only the Libyan armed forces are responsible for preserving the security of Libya.”

The French leader expressed: “I intend to be as firm as possible with the Europeans because we have a responsibility to stop all those who attempted to destabilise Libya from doing so.”