As written in the France 24 article below, “two months since the Beirut explosion, it is a special day of solidarity between France and Lebanon.
FRANCE 24 partnered up for a charity concert at the Olympia concert hall in Paris, with headliners –including Sting – hoping to raise funds and awareness about the plight of the Lebanese people.”
The concert was directed by “Mr. Ibrahim Maalouf and in the presence of many French-speaking artists (Sting and Mika, Clara Luciani, Matthieu Chedid, Yannick Noah)”.
For this day of solidarity, France 24 also organized two live debates in Beirut, one in French and the other in English.
As far as the concert is concerned, two artists flew to Paris from Beirut to participate in this charity event (i.e., Ms. Hiba Tawaji and Mr. Oussama Rahbani).
Others (i.e., Ms. Nadine Labaki) participated live from Beirut, in the name of their peers. Ms. Labaki expressed a courageous political message to the Lebanese leaders to demand wisdom and financial reforms.
France 24 partnered with “France Télévisions, Radio France, TV5 Monde and the French Red Cross“.
The concert and the debates were streamed live on five Lebanese channels.
Thanks to Wikipedia for allowing Bambi to watch it live out of Sackville, NB, Canada!
First, here is the amazing concert at the Olympia in Paris!
Slightly before the concert, a France 24 team arrived to Beirut to produce the two debates mentioned above.
Bambi had the chance to watch the first debate. What an excellent (and moving) discussion, which took place in Beirut, right across from the port (site of the blast). The inspiring guests were a journalist, a physician, a consultant in culture, and a law student. This debate was conducted in French.
For those who understand the language of Molière, here it is:
As far as the the English debate was concerned, Bambi is eager to complete watching it at the first opportunity (time to sleep now :)).The topic was: “Rebuilding Beirut: Can Lebanon’s capital make a fresh start?” Thanks to Mr. Gallagher Fenwick and his team of producers, namely Mr. Alessandro Xenos, Ms. uliette Laurain, and Ms. Ariana Mozafari:
https://www.france24.com/en/20201001-rebuilding-beirut-can-lebanon-s-capital-make-a-fresh-start
To conclude this post, Lebanese people want to live, not just survive from one crisis to the other. They want to preserve their country, freedom, excellent quality of services (medical, pharmaceutical, etc.), vibrant cultural life, quality of life, and… sanity.
They are grateful to France for historically caring about Lebanon and for supporting them.
Once again, many thanks to France and to all the friends of Lebanon around the world, including Europe and the Americas!
