Former French Prime Minister, M. Maurice Couve de Murville, is to head a French peace mission to Lebanon in the near future.

His formal appointment to the post was made by President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in Paris on Thursday (13 November).

M. Couve de Murville, who engineered France's reconciliation with the Arab world after the 1956 Suez crisis and the war for Algerian independence, will leave for Beirut shortly, a spokesman for the President revealed.

He will be accompanied by M. Georges Gorse, a former Gaullist minister and ambassador to Algeria.

The Lebanese authorities have given their approval for the mission, despite early fears that France would tend to favour one side more than the other in bitter factional strife...and their disinclination to internationalise the country's civil problems.

One of the main topics under discussion is likely to be French aid for Lebanese reconstruction.