Macron calls Lebanese politician as cabinet deadline looms

French President Emmanuel Macron has held a call with Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker to try to remove an obstacle to meeting this week’s deadline for forming a new government to drag the nation out of crisis, a Lebanese politician said on Sunday.

Lebanon’s leadership promised Macron in Beirut on Sept. 1 that they would form a government of technocrats without party loyalties in about two weeks. They have just days left.

France has drawn up a roadmap of measures to tackle endemic state corruption and deal with a host of other economic problems so Lebanon, facing its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, can secure desperately needed international aid.