Europe's Middle East Exit: France Out of the Lebanon Talks

n April 2026, Israel and Lebanon held their first direct talks since 1993 in Washington. France was kept out. The exclusion exposes a structural failure of European Middle East diplomacy built on De Gaulle's Arab policy, decades of institutional inertia, and shifting domestic pressures. Greece, on the periphery and free of the constraints binding the major powers, may be the only EU member positioned to act.