France Urges Restraint on Lebanon, Warns on Military

Speaking on France 2 on June 2, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the strikes Israel had threatened against Beirut "will not take place," crediting a round of diplomacy that ran through a Macron-Trump call on Sunday and his own talks with Iranian and American counterparts, and insisting that Lebanon must not become "a scapegoat" for the stalled Iran-US deal. He called for a mutual Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal, with Israeli-Lebanese talks due in Washington this week, and said an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was "within reach." He confirmed Israel would be allowed to show only defensive equipment at the Eurosatory arms fair in Paris from June 15-19.

In closed Senate hearings the same week, chief of defence staff Gen. Fabien Mandon delivered a blunter message about French hard power: the military is too small and arms production too slow, and Germany could surpass France as Europe's leading military power within five years. He said missile-maker MBDA, though running its factories around the clock, has too few production lines, and that years of neglect had left the Air and Space Force short of aircraft. The Senate votes this week on an updated military planning law that earmarks an extra 36 billion euros for defence by 2030 but funds no additional jets or warships; the text prioritises developing the Rafale F5 standard over fleet size, pushing delivery of 22 Rafale F4s back to 2033-2034.

On the domestic front, an Ipsos poll for Le Parisien published June 2 put the left at risk of missing the presidential runoff for a third consecutive time, one year out. Across the configurations tested, combined left-wing candidates drew at most a third of voting intentions, with the camp split between Jean-Luc Melenchon's radical bloc and a fragmented moderate wing unable to unite behind a single name.

The week's other dominant story was the fallout from PSG's May 31 Champions League victory over Arsenal, whose celebrations turned violent. French police made 890 arrests nationwide -- a more than 45 percent jump on last year's title -- while 219 participants and 57 security personnel were injured, a man in his twenties died in a Paris motorbike crash, and looting struck around 15 cities across 71 municipalities, with some 20,000 people massing on the Champs-Elysees. By June 2 the disorder had hardened into an argument over immigration: Bruno Retailleau tied the violence to "migratory disorder," Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin floated an immigration moratorium, and Barrot rejected both framings, pointing instead to a newly agreed EU "Return" directive.