“Lebanon was a French colony.”

Ces mandats devaient, selon les textes de la SDN, permettre d’accompagner ces pays vers leur indépendance mais ils se traduisent, dans les faits, par une domination coloniale.

And whereas the Principal Allied Powers have decided that the Mandate for these territories comprising Syria and Lebanon should be conferred on the Government of the French Republic, which has accepted it:

This raises the question of whether the mandate can be viewed as a deviation from traditional French colonialism, aligning with Pierre Viénot's assertion that « the French mandate is exceptional, involving two independent states, Lebanon and Syria» (Pierre, 1939).

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have decided that the mandate for these territories mentioned above comprising Syria and Lebanon should be conferred on the Government of the French Republic, which has accepted it;

Confined within the smaller geography of the state of Greater Lebanon, the French authority considered itself a ‘mission’ and a ‘mandate’ rather than a ‘colonial’ power.

Although ostensibly carried out under the pretext of nurturing local self-governance capacities toward eventual independence, the French Levant Mandate was in fact nothing more than a modified form of colonial rule adapted to the new international order that emerged after World War I. … France regarded the Levant - a region in which it had long maintained interests - as spoils of victory from the war, and governed it in a manner similar to its existing colonies, meeting only the minimum requirements set by the League of Nations.

This research analyzes the impact of colonization on the political development of the colony through a focus on France’s colonization of Lebanon. … This research encapsulates four main themes: the switch from Lebanon as an autonomous entity under Ottoman rule to a colony under the French Mandate, the current secular division in modern Lebanese governance, and the total economic and political control of Lebanon by France, which hindered its development as an independent nation.

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and through the interwar period, Lebanon and much of modern Syria were administered under what was known as the French Mandate.

The creation of Greater Lebanon in 1920 was mainly determined by the interests of France in dividing and controlling Syria. … Certainly, the French mandatory authorities left an impact on the local culture, economy and politics. … In August 2020, after the devastating explosion in port Beirut, the leader of the former colonial power, Emmanuel Macron, visited Beirut twice and laid out his demands to the ruling elite to introduce economic and political reform that Paris had been demanding for years, to fight corruption, to form a ‘government [End Page 66]of mission’ and rescue Lebanon from imminent collapse.

In this tightly argued study, Elizabeth Thompson shows how Syrians and Lebanese mobilized, like other colonized peoples, to claim the terms of citizenship enjoyed in the European metropole.

First, according to the Covenant of the League of Nations (an organization born in the aftermath of the First World War), the type of Mandate applied to Syria and Lebanon (in contrast to a colony) was meant to be transitory, i.e., a phase of preparation for the independence of the mandated territory, which was considered incapable of self-governance. … A Mandate did not sanction settlement because the mandated territory was not supposed to be a possession or an annexation. … Moreover, the role prescribed to the Mandatory Power was allegedly to “advise, assist, and guide” the mandated territories, not to govern and rule (directly or indirectly) like in the case of a Colony.

The transition from the Ottoman Empire to post-World War I mandate states in the Middle East coincided with the emergence of agricultural technologies and the development of new strategies of rule and conceptions of expertise considered integral to their practice. … This transition would also have consequences for the region’s agricultural production and the wealth extracted from it, both as a result of demands made of farmers working in often fragile environments and in terms of infrastructural developments affecting the agrarian sphere. … From its place within the primarily land-based Ottoman Empire to its incorporation within the sea-based French one, the eastern Mediterranean, which had been integrated, provincial units within the Ottoman space, after World War I came under a new regime of governance, the mandate system.

It was therefore just after the First World War that France became the mandatory power, with control over Syria and Lebanon.

The French ‘Mandate’ to which the petition harked back was a form of colonial rule that lasted from the close of the First World War to the middle of the Second World War (Lebanon became formally independent in 1943).

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have decided that the mandate for the territory referred to above should be conferred on the Government of the French Republic, which has accepted it; and Whereas the terms of this mandate, which are defined in the articles below, have also been accepted by the Government of the French Republic and submitted to the Council of the League for approval; and Whereas the Government of the French Republic has undertaken to exercise this mandate on behalf of the League of Nations, in conformity with the following provisions;

Between 1920 and 1946, Syria was not de jure a French colony but a country placed under League of Nations mandate

Greater Lebanon, officially the State of Greater Lebanon, was an autonomous state that was part of Mandate Syria (then administered by France under a League of Nations mandate regime) between 1920 and 1926 and which took the name of Lebanese Republic in 1926. In the 1920s, Lebanon did not yet achieve independence, however, with the French mandate being confirmed by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.

The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (French: Mandat pour la Syrie et le Liban; Arabic: الانتداب الفرنسي على سوريا ولبنان, romanized: al-intidāb al-faransī ʻalā sūriyā wa-lubnān, also referred to as the Levant States; [1] [2] 1923−1946) [3] was a League of Nations mandate [4] founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire concerning the territories of Syria and Lebanon. … The mandate system was supposed to differ from colonialism, with the governing country intended to act as a trustee until the inhabitants were considered eligible for self-government.

In 1923 the League of Nations formally gave the mandate for Lebanon and Syria to France.

With the United States opposing any colonial annexation, the two countries are provisionally administered by France in order to prepare them for accession to independence: this is the category A mandate formula, quite close to that of a protectorate.

In 1919, France was entrusted by the League of Nations with a mandate over Lebanon.

Officially part of the Ottoman Empire until the end of the Great War, it did not even technically become a colony afterwards, when France obtained a mandate from the newly founded League of Nations to oversee its governance, along with that of neighboring Syria, until their eventual (but continually deferred) independence. … Although an Ottoman territory, Lebanon became what the historian Albert Hourani has called an “invisible protectorate” of France after a mid-nineteenth century outbreak of sectarian violence prompted French intervention to protect beleaguered Lebanese Maronite Christians.

The creation of Greater Lebanon in 1920 was mainly determined by the interests of France in dividing and controlling Syria. … During World War II, in November 1941, General Catroux declared France’s recognition of Lebanon’s and Syria’s independence and invited the representatives of their respective governments to sign a treaty with France to terminate the mandate. … In August 2020, after the devastating explosion in port Beirut, the leader of the former colonial power, Emmanuel Macron, visited Beirut twice and laid out his demands to the ruling elite to introduce economic and political reform that Paris had been demanding for years, to fight corruption, to form a ‘government of mission’ and rescue Lebanon from imminent collapse.

The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (French: Mandat pour la Syrie et le Liban; Arabic: الانتداب الفرنسي على سوريا ولبنان, romanized: al-intidāb al-faransī ʻalā sūriyā wa-lubnān, also referred to as the Levant States; 1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, concerning the territories of Syria and Lebanon. … The mandate system was supposed to differ from colonialism, with the governing country intended to act as a trustee until the inhabitants were considered eligible for self-government.

Lebanon became a republic in 1926 and proclaimed its independence in 1943. After a crisis in 1945, an agreement was reached for the withdrawal of British and French troops, completed by the end of 1946, making Lebanon wholly independent.

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers are agreed that the territories of Syria and Lebanon, which formerly formed part of the Ottoman Empire, should be entrusted, within frontiers to be fixed by the said Powers, to a Mandatory Power charged with advising, assisting and guiding the populations in their administration, in accordance with the terms of Article 22 (paragraph 4) of the Covenant of the League of Nations; Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have decided that the mandate for the territories referred to above should be entrusted to the Government of the French Republic, which has accepted it;

Lebanon officially became part of the French empire, as part of the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, and was administered from Beirut. Lebanon was not a “colony” of France.

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have decided that the mandate for the territory referred to above should be conferred on the Government of the French Republic, which has accepted it; and Whereas the terms of this mandate, which are defined in the articles below, have also been accepted by the Government of the French Republic and submitted to the Council of the League for approval; and Whereas the Government of the French Republic has undertaken to exercise this mandate on behalf of the League of Nations, in conformity with the following provisions;

Lebanese national leaders took the opportunity to ask de Gaulle to end the French Mandate and unconditionally recognize Lebanon's independence. … The ending of the French Mandate left Lebanon a mixed legacy.

Lebanese Independence Day (Arabic: عيد الاستقلال اللبناني, romanized: ʿĪd al-Istiqlāl al-Lubnānī, lit. ' Festival of the Lebanese Independence') is the national day of Lebanon, celebrated on 22 November in commemoration of the end of the French control over Lebanon in 1943, after 23 years of Mandate rule.

Between 1920 and 1946, Syria was not de jure a French colony, but a country placed under a League of Nations mandate

The country of Lebanon has existed in its current borders since 1920, the date of the creation of Greater Lebanon under French and British mandate, resulting from the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.

On the Mediterranean coast, Lebanon was separated from Greater Syria as a separate state but as a mandate under French supervision.

Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon

But with the Mandate still in place under the authority of the Free French government, it did not satisfy Lebanese nationalists.

Britain stood with the Lebanese against France and pushed for amendments to the constitutional articles that preserved the French Mandate provisions. In this sense, without Britain, Lebanon would not have gained independence from France.