In Lebanon, Emmanuel Macron's emotion about his meeting with this teenager 5 years earlier

LEBANON – It's a short, very symbolic embrace for Emmanuel Macron in Beirut. Visiting Lebanon this Friday, January 17, the French president paid attention to a Lebanese teenager, Tamara Tayah, at the end of his speech to the Franco-Lebanese community.

During a visit to the country in September 2020, Emmanuel Macron had a few words for this teenager, whom he then hugged for a long time, moved. Ten years old at the time, Tamara Tayah had just lost her mother a month earlier in the violent explosion at the port of Beirut which left 235 dead and 6,500 injured.

She then gave the Head of State a brooch, in the shape of Lebanon and made by her mother, at the same time pinning a little note on his chest (see video below). “During his entire stay in Beirut, he had kept it, pinned to the lapel of his jacket”recalls the Lebanese media Here Beirut.

A second misfortune

“Little Tamara, who had lost her mother a few weeks earlier, gave me a brooch on which Lebanon appeared and which evoked the memory of her mother (in a message, Editor's note) who had left a few weeks before. This Lebanon has never left my heart”declared Emmanuel Macron this Friday in Beirut, before joining a few seconds later on the side of the stage the young Tamara, now aged 14, to give her a hug (a sequence to see in the video below from 19'50).

In 2022, Tamara Tayah experienced a second misfortune. She had lost her father, who died in a helicopter accident in Italy. Emmanuel Macron had not then forgotten the teenager, who also has a brother and a sister.

He wrote this message on his Facebook account: “On September 1, 2020 in Beirut, I heard many moving testimonies. There is one that particularly touched me, it was that of little Tamara. The explosion took away what she held most dear, her mother. If I got involved, if I remained mobilized for Lebanon and I remain fully mobilized today, it is for Tamara and the hope that she embodies, that of Lebanese youth. In an accident in Italy, Tamara lost her dad. I want to tell him that I share his pain and that my thoughts are with him during this terrible ordeal. More than ever with all my heart with her. »

During his visit to Lebanon this Friday, Emmanuel Macron showed his support for the new leaders and announced the upcoming holding of an international conference in Paris to help rebuild the country which is emerging from a war with Israel.

He also called for accelerating the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in southern Lebanon, which he discussed during a meeting with visiting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. in Beirut.

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