France pledges $17 million to Lebanon's struggling schools

France's visiting foreign minister pledged Friday €15 million ($17 million) in aid to Leban's schools, which are struggling under weight of country's major ecomic crisis.

Jean-Yves Le Drian said France will t let “Lebanese youth alone” face crisis that has hit education sector hard.

Schools in Leban have let some teachers and ministrators go and many face risk of closure. Parents, struggling to pay private school fees, enrolled ir children in alrey overcrowded public schools. French assistance will go to a network of over 50 French and Francophone schools.

ecomic crisis has impacted almost all facets of life in Leban, a small Mediterranean country long considered a middle-income state. Since last year, unemployment has risen and poverty deepened, as foreign currency dried up and currency tumbled to lose more than 80% of its value before dollar.

Le Drian, who arrived here late Wednesday, said France could only help Leban face crisis if Lebanese officials do ir part, urging m to introduce much needed reforms.

Le Drian is first senior Western official to visit struggling country. In stern public messs, he urged Lebanese officials to go through with an audit of country's central bank, reform a bloated and highly indebted electricity sector and maintain an independent judiciary.

France is former colonial power in Leban and has previously organized conferences that pledged assistance to Leban but demanded reforms to public sector and governance.

“Leban is on verge of abyss. But re are ways on table to fix this,” he said Friday during a visit to a school in Mechref district, south of capital Beirut.

During this visit, he said Leban is on France's list of priority countries for humanitarian assistance, ding that his country alrey donated € 50 million ($58 million), primarily to health care sector to deal with coronavirus challenge.

But Le Drian said Thursday only way out of financial and ecomic crisis for Leban is to secure a program with International Monetary Fund. n, France and its allies can secure assistance to Leban, he said.

Talks with IMF have been bogged down in internal political disputes and struggles over who is to blame for banking losses.

Leban's crisis is rooted in years of mismanment and corruption. It has deepened since government defaulted on its sovereign debt in March, eruption of coronavirus pandemic and restrictions that it brought.

Leban witnessed nationwide protests last October after government, as part of efforts to introduce austerity measures, levied new taxes on messaging service WhatsApp. Protesters accused government of mismanment and years of corruption and eventually forced n-premier, Sa Hariri, to resign.

A new government, backed by powerful Hezbollah group and its allies was formed in January and has since been bogged down by domestic rivalries on ways to proceed with reforms and IMF talks.