French President Emmanuel Macron, in a visit to Lebanon, has offered to help provide the crisis-hit nation with vital aid if its politicians make good on long-overdue reforms.
Speaking at the palatial French ambassador's residence in Beirut from where Greater Lebanon was proclaimed by colonial France 100 years ago, Macron said on Tuesday he would rally international aid at an October donor conference aimed at rebuilding the capital after a devastating explosion last month and halting the country's economic demise.
But "we will not give Lebanon a carte-blanche, or a blank check," he added, noting that everything was conditional on whether the country's fractious leaders could unite around change.
Even before the August 4 explosion that killed at least 190 people, wounded more than 6,000 and damaged wide swaths of Beirut, Lebanon had been drowning in economic crisis.
Its government was seeking $20bn in financial aid, half from an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme and the other half from development funds pledged by a host of donor nations at a 2018 donor conference. An additional sum of nearly $5bn is now needed for the reconstruction of Beirut, as well as humanitarian assistance.
Macron said Lebanese leaders had pledged to form a government within 15 days, which must then implement a host of reforms within one to three months.
Before the meetings on Tuesday, the French embassy distributed a "draft programme for the new government", to the heads of political blocs, which Al Jazeera has obtained.
The French draft proposals get into the nitty-gritty details of public policy in Lebanon, underlining some laws and projects and sidelining others.