PARIS (AP) – French President Emmanuel Macron said a French soldier was killed and three others injured on Saturday morning in an attack on U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
“Everything suggests that responsibility for this attack lies with Hezbollah,” Macron wrote on social media. “France demands that the Lebanese authorities immediately arrest those responsible and assume their responsibilities alongside UNIFIL,” the U.N. mission in southern Lebanon.
Macron identified the soldier as Staff Sgt. Florian Montorio of the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment from Montauban. He added that three of Montorio´s “comrades in arms were injured and evacuated.”
“The nation bows in respect and extends its support to the families of our soldiers and to all our military personnel engaged for peace in Lebanon,” he said.
His death came nearly a month after a drone attack on March 12 targeted a Kurdish military base in Iraq’s Erbil region, killing French Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion and wounding six others.
French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin said Saturday that the soldier was killed during an ambush in the Deir Kifa region in Lebanon. She said he was on a mission to open a route toward a UNIFIL post that had been isolated for several days due to fighting in the area between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.
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