- Title: FRANCE: LEBANESE POLITICIAN RAYMOND EDDE DIES IN PARIS
- Date: 11th May 2000
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MAY 11, 2000)(REUTERS) 1. EXT CHURCH EXTERIOR 0.06 2. MV SYRIAN AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE ELIAS NEJME ARRIVING AT CHURCH 0.06 3. MV HEARSE PULLING UP TO CHURCH 0.22 4. MV BOUTROS BOUTROS GAHLI ARRIVES 0.27 5. SLV COFFIN BEING PULLED OUT OF CHURCH 0.42 6. SLV COFFIN CARRIED INTO CHURCH 0.48 7. MV (LEFT SIDE OF SCREEN) EGYPTIAN AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE ALI MAHER ASSAYED 0.55 8. SLV COFFIN CARRIED DOWN AISLE 1.07 9. MV FAMILY OF DECEASED/ FLOWERS ON COFFIN/ WREATH (4 SHOTS) 1.27 10. PREISTS/ MOURNERS/ COFFIN (4 SHOTS) 2.10 11. CU WOMAN CRYING 2.16 12. VARIOUS MOURNERS/ FUNERAL (13 SHOTS) 3.24 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 26th May 2000 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVA92C4CXXW8JRKJ4N58AAHJQBCE
- Story Text: A Lebanese politician considered by his followers as
the conscience of Lebanon has died in Paris.
Raymond Edde, a moderate Christian Lebanese politician
who had lived in self-imposed exile in France since 1976, died
in Paris on Wednesday (May 10) at age 89.
Edde, whose funeral services took place at the church
Notre Dame de Lebanon on Thursday (May 11), was injured in a
fall earlier this week and died in a Paris hospital following
complications.
His body is expected to be sent back to Lebanon for burial
in his home town of Byblos, north of Beirut.
Edde, the son of a former president who ruled Lebanon from
1936 to 1941 under the French mandate, was a staunch opponent
of the Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian military roles in his
country over the past 20 years.
He fled to France after surviving three assassination
attempts in 1976, and although criticised for staying away
from his country, he won public admiration for not taking part
in the bloody war between rival Moslem and Christian militias.
Supporters tried to get him to succeed President Amin
Gemayel in 1988, and posters of Edde were plastered across the
bullet-scarred walls of Beirut.
His repeated calls for the withdrawal of all foreign
powers from Lebanon failed to win Edde political backing from
these powers and their local allies, and he failed to muster
enough support in parliament to win him high office.
A lawyer by training, the distinguished looking bachelor
entered political life in 1949 and was architect of Lebanon's
highly strict banking secrecy law in the 1950s, which helped
draw billions of dollars of capital inflow into the country.
From a prominent political family in the northern Lebanese
town of Byblos, Edde was born in Alexandria, Egypt. His father
Emile later fled Egypt and was sentenced to death after
opposing the Ottoman authorities who then ruled Lebanon.
He graduated with a law degree from the Jesuit University
and succeeded his father as head of the National Bloc in 1949,
entering parliament four years later.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None