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Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s special envoy for Lebanon, is to arrive in Beirut on Wednesday as Paris seeks to restore its flagging diplomatic role in the country, experts say.

When the former French foreign minister meets President Joseph Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, talks are expected to focus on continued aid for communities badly affected by Lebanon’s economic collapse, Israel’s invasion and occupation of one-fifth of the country, and the future of the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, which France is deeply involved in and whose mandate is due to end this year.

What are France’s ties to Lebanon?

France’s ties to Lebanon date back centuries. Their colonial relationship was rooted in cultural and political alliances with Lebanon’s Christian communities.

The French Mandate from 1920 to 1943 defined Lebanon’s borders, introduced constitutional governance and entrenched French cultural influence in the Mediterranean country. Even after independence, Beirut remained a Francophone hub, earning the nickname “Paris of the Middle East”. French is still spoken by many Lebanese, particularly in Christian communities.

After the catastrophic Beirut port explosion in 2020, France showed its influence. Macron immediately visited the devastated capital and provided a major aid package, showing France’s desire to position itself as Lebanon’s most engaged European partner.

But like many former colonial powers, France’s interest in Lebanon is also strategic. “From Paris’s perspective, Lebanon constitutes a strategic foothold” that allows France to maintain influence across the Arab Mashreq and eastern Mediterranean while playing a role in issues ranging from Syria and migration to energy and Euro-Arab relations, Lebanese journalist and analyst Souhayb Jawhar told Al Jazeera.

That interest is also tied to preserving French influence. According to Jawhar, France seeks to prevent the collapse of Lebanese state institutions, including the army, public administration and central bank, fearing a vacuum that could be filled by rival regional or international powers.

French interests are also economic with TotalEnergies involved in gas exploration in Lebanese waters while shipping giant CMA CGM sees the Port of Beirut as part of a broader French logistical network stretching across the Mediterranean.

But France’s role remains contentious. Some factions aligned with Hezbollah and Iran view Paris’s involvement with suspicion, seeing it as an extension of Western influence in Lebanon rather than a neutral diplomatic actor.

Is France being edged out of Lebanon by the US?

Karim Safieddine, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said Paris is watching closely for any “US overreach”, which remains a “concern for France”. France, he added, is “always cautious” about confrontation in Lebanon that could damage its ties to the region, particularly during the era of Trump, who has shown a distaste for the traditional norms of diplomacy and international law.

“So generally speaking, they [France] don’t like taking radical approaches to policy in Lebanon and prefer more conventional, status quo-maintaining approaches,” Safieddine said.

But the expanding US role in Lebanon has become increasingly visible with Washington no longer merely mediating negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. In a rare move, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally intervened to counter calls by Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem to bring down Salam’s government.

Trump also claimed to have talked with Hezbollah representatives this week. Although it is unclear whether this was via intermediaries, it is still an unprecedented step for a US president given Washington’s designation of Hezbollah as a “terrorist organisation”.

Amid this flurry of US activity in Lebanon, France has found itself increasingly sidelined, particularly since a previous US-brokered ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel in November 2024 and as Israel has actively sought to limit Paris’s role, favouring US mediation instead.

That 2024 ceasefire, which was meant to end more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, clearly stipulates that the US will sponsor negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, further formalising Washington’s lead role. Despite the agreement, Israel continued carrying out strikes inside Lebanon, with the UN documenting more than 10,000 ceasefire violations during this so-called ceasefire.

Khalil Helou, a geopolitical analyst and lecturer, explained that while France still has normal diplomatic relations with Israel, those relations have deteriorated over the Israeli wars on Gaza and southern Lebanon. While France remains involved diplomatically, it no longer plays the central role it once did during Lebanese crises.

“Pragmatically, France has no leverage over Israel to push for a ceasefire,” he said.

Another example of expanding US influence came on Monday when Trump reportedly managed to prevent imminent Israeli attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs following open Israeli threats.

Jawhar said there is “genuine French concern regarding the decline of its influence in Lebanon over recent years”.

“French decision-makers recognise that most major initiatives related to Lebanon’s future now pass through Washington or influential Gulf capitals while the French role has become closer to that of a partner than that of a leader,” he told Al Jazeera.

“For this reason, Paris continuously seeks to reaffirm its position in any future settlement, not by confronting the United States, but by presenting itself as an indispensable channel of communication with the Lebanese, Europeans and international institutions.

“It can be said that France is not seeking to compete with Washington as much as it is seeking to prevent its complete marginalisation within the Lebanese file.”

How will France seek to maintain influence in Lebanon?

One way is through humanitarian assistance. On May 11, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said it had provided 17 million euros ($19.8m) “to meet the needs of the displaced civilian population”.

But analysts said one of France’s most important remaining sources of leverage in Lebanon is the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission.

France has played a leading role within UNIFIL since the mission’s creation in 1978 and views its presence in southern Lebanon as an important part of its regional influence. According to Helou, French officials are, therefore, exploring options for a multinational force that could succeed UNIFIL and allow Paris to retain a security role in Lebanon.

This is one of the issues Le Drian will likely raise during his visit this week.

France has also maintained longstanding support for the Lebanese army, another institution it sees as central to preventing a state collapse.

Jawhar said France’s approach ultimately rests less on hard power than on the dense network of relationships it has built in Lebanon.

“In reality, France relies primarily on soft diplomacy to preserve its influence in Lebanon,” he said. “It understands that its hard-power instruments are limited and that its ability to influence events is tied to the network of political, economic and cultural relationships it has built over decades.”