hello and welcome to dateline london. this week — we will be there for you, says a french president to the people of beirut. what does he actually mean? we will be there for you says a british home secretary to migrants crossing the english channel in record numbers, with an entirely different meaning. and has the coronavirus pandemic made millennials the unluckiest generation? my guests on socially distanced screens. agnes poirier of french weekly l'express and american journalist and authorjef mcallister. and here in the studio the bbc‘s special

correspondent clive myrie. welcome. we won t give up on you, president macron told the people of lebanon, as he inspected the wreckage of beirut 5 port last week. he promised french aid would not go into corrupt hands and french effort would go into political reform. let's pick that up with agnes, this is one for you. how much influence does the former colonial power still have in terms of domestic politics inside lebanon? well, i think it's interesting to talk about the influence france might be having in helping lebanon out of its current misery. you are mentioning the colonial past, but there is so much more to explain the bond between france and lebanon. i think we need to talk about this because when you look at the pictures that we have seen, 36 hours after the explosion, a political leader

in the streets of beirut. he's not lebanese. neither the lebanese president or senior ministers from lebanon were seen in the streets of beirut. it took a french president to be there. and it says a lot. and you see it goes as far... of course, you can mention the french protectorate of lebanon. that lasted only 20 years from 1923 until 1943 but there is much more and it is not so much in terms of diplomatic or strategic terms. it is in terms of feelings and sometimes in international relations we don't talk enough about the links between people, the affection between france and lebanon. and the influence of president macron could actually be quite decisive. he talks about the emergency aid relief that lebanon needs now, but there is the future. and the people of lebanon started it back in october. they want a political clear—out

and france can help. just one example, in 2005, when the president was assassinated, france was behind the creation of an international tribunal through the un and, two months later, the syrian army left lebanon. so there is a lot that france can do. thank you for being clear on that and giving us so much background and history education. jeff, i mean, notably not on the streets of beirut 36 hours after the blast was president trump. now, obviously a superpower in the middle east for all these decades. president trump of course said something about a bomb attack which was then rowed back on by his officials. some aid is arriving from the us, but what is the us role here? i don't think there is much of one. us influence in the middle east has been on the wane for some time, afterthe iraq war,

in particular, but it is not trying to do anything in particular in the middle east any more. there is no palestinian—israeli peace plan that the us is pushing, as it had for many years. syria is a mess, an imbroglio, and the us has basically checked out of that. the policy in iran is to impose sanctions, which does not have the support of allies. so i don't think we will see an awful lot of american attempts to be influential here. there is no domestic lobby for it. though there is a substantial lebanese diaspora in the us, it is not politically organised. there is a difficulty because the us considers hezbollah a terrorist organisation. of course, it's very powerful in the lebanonese government. it makes it difficult to work with the lebanese government, if you are the us. the health minister is now run by a hezbollah minister. so i would expect this is all going to be a kind of stasis and it is what allows president macron to do what he has. he can be a star because

there is no american that wants to show up. clive, jeff and agnes looking at the international relationship inside lebanon, but you've reported from inside lebanon. take us through the events on ground. how do you assess the past few days? i was last there a few years ago, reporting on the syrian refugee crisis. 1.5 million syrians sheltering in lebanon. that shows the generosity of spirit of the people there. that's on top of palestinian refugees who have been sheltering there, as well. i've always thought of lebanon as a country that is blessed with wonderful people. but is blighted with a ruling elite that is, frankly, pretty appalling. the question is what happened on tuesday, will that change anything? and i take agnes's point about what president macron and the french can do, certainly in the short term. i, however, feel, in the longer term, we are not going to see that much change and i think that is partly because the international community has too much on its plate already. yes, president macron

in the short term can lead a coalition that will perhaps force systemic changes in terms of economic reforms and transparency and that kind of thing, in return for aid and for financial assistance. but longer term, we are talking about the global coronavirus crisis here. it has killed well over a million people across the globe. we're talking about an economic situation globally that is worse than has been the case for over a century. the international community has other things on its plate and, sadly, i would suggest that lebanon is way down the list of priorities. just go back to agnes and jeff on that. that is a stark assessment there from clive. agnes, obviously president macron is getting an international donor conference together, talking about conditions for opening the purse strings. what do you think his prospects are there? well, i mean, i'm tempted to share the pessimism when you think about lebanon. can it go worse?

this is when something can happen, and macron, when he said, well, this is a moment of reckoning. perhaps we have reached the bottom. on the 11th of august, you know. nothing can be the same. because the situation is so dire when you think that half the population is below the poverty line, 80% of the currency lost in less than a year. so now, what he is proposing to do is to lead an international coalition of donors and that actually might trigger the return, for instance, of the gulf states in it, because they abandoned lebanon thinking, you know, it is in the hands of iran and hezbollah and they don't want to have anything

to do with it any more. and then the imf and the eu. but the lebanese people are suffering and needs to do the rest. i think there is something to be said about a young, energetic president like president macron. is behind this most extraordinary thing that is the eu recovery plan of 750 billion euros. he managed to convince angela merkel. it took three years to gain her on the side of his big european project, and he pulled it off. so, you never know, iam choosing to be positive here. just coming back to your point about the united states, because you set out in fairly stark terms the limits of us aspiration in the region now, but the us still does have strategic objectives and it has strategic friends. for example, israel. the gulf states has got strategic rivals in terms of iran. can it achieve any strategic objectives in this region,

if it allows lebanon to become a failed state? if you look at the way it is defining its strategic objectives now, at least under the trump administration, they are essentially negative. it is to stop iran from making trouble, but, really, regime change is the long—term goal, i think you would say. and it is being done not through using alliances, but by using sanctions, and other countries don't like the sanctions much, but their companies don't want themselves to be subject to american sanctions by breaking american sanctions. so it can be done without a lot of alliance support. there is not a peace process. israel and the us are close together and if israel wants the us to take some active role to help lebanon, i'm sure it would be glad to do so. i imagine the purse strings will be lifted to some degree and emergency aid will be distributed efficiently by the american military. but in terms of longterm coalition building, you just don't see that on the agenda of the trump administration. but in terms of longterm coalition building, you just don't see that on the agenda

of the trump administration. ifjoe biden becomes president, i'm sure we will revert to a more traditional foreign policy where the us would like to be the sort of general chair of the table, no matter what the problem is. that is going to take some time to get organised. i think it would be an optimistic thing for countries around the middle east besides lebanon, if the us were to become more involved in a more sustained way, but we are a fair way off from that happening. thank you. we are going to move on. we can obviously keep what on that over the weeks ahead. i want to talk now about migrants closer to the uk. on just one day last week, 235 migrants, some of them in small inflatable vessels, made the sea crossing from france to britain. among them were a pregnant woman and many small children. migrant arrivals this year are already double those for the whole of last year, and the government is reported to be drawing up plans for the royal navy to turn back boats before they reach

british beaches. clive, you mentioned 1.5 million syrian refugees in lebanon. and palestinian refugees before even that. here we have a british government who said there would not be any of these crossings, or very few, by this time — it said that late last year. what has happened? it is a very good question. the weather has been great and the seas have been calm. that has encouraged people to get out on the water. you have also got the slightly more scattered nature of the migrant situation, as it were, across northern france. in the last few years, you have seen the dismantling of certain camps and that means that the problem is a little less manageable, as far as the french are concerned and as far as the british are concerned, who did have their own border force agents working with the french in those camps. now it is much more scattered. so the smugglers and those people who are taking money to get these people across the channel, they are in heaven, frankly. you have also got to the

international maritime laws. the law of the sea. which means that if you are a migrant or someone fleeing persecution, you get into the territorial waters of any particular country, that country has to pick you up and then you can apply for asylum. and, obviously, if these migrants are getting into british territorial waters, then it is the responsibility of the british to have to deal with them, and that is the problem we have at the moment. and agnes, that's the if — that the brits are getting, or the british government, i should say, is getting frustrated about because it wants the french to do more. what is the french view on this? well, if you compare the newspapers, just reading the newspapers in france and britain on that subject, it is quite amazing to see the front page for the daily mail, or in the times today. when, in france, it isjust a tiny piece, a tiny item inside the newspaper. i don't think...

britain can deal with a few hundred, or even a few thousand migrants crossing the channel over the summer for the reasons clive mentioned. and i am not sure it should be front page news, really, because britain has more important or pressing matters to deal with, so that is one thing. of course, it is always going to be difficult. priti patel met a few weeks ago with her french counterpart. they set up anotherjoint franco—british intelligence group with officers from both countries, but, in the end when you have people who have come from so far away and are ready to die to reach the uk — and some of them are economic migrants, others political asylum seekers — they need to be processed. and you can't just... if they are ready to die — and that is what they tell

the french who try to stop them in the english channel. they threaten to go in the water. and you have to to save them first and process them then. and of course divisions of opinion on the uk, jeff, on this, with some saying, well, it would just be cheaper to buy them a ferry ticket than all the effort put into policing the channel, while yet accepting them. and others saying, let's get the royal navy out, and some discussion about whether the government is considering getting the royal navy back out to turn people away. you are a lawyer, where does the law stand on all of this? the law is very clear. if you are on the high seas and in a bad boat and someone comes across you, they have to pick you up. and as was said, if a british government vessel does it, they are going to be processed by the british government. now, the if french coastguard, who intercepts them close to the shores of france and can

herd them back, that is one thing. but to find them in the territorial waters of britain and then try to herd them back to france is illegal. they must be processed in an orderly fashion. there are agreements to take migrants back to the countries that have allowed them to get from wherever they have come — maybe through germany or france, to britain. those countries are supposed to take them back from britain, but in an orderly process. and so, i mean, i do think it is overblown. there were 4000 this year. that is out of 49,000 refugees that britain has processed and out of 700,000 long—term migrants britain has accepted. and british refugee acceptances are one third of germany's and one half of france and spain. it is an arousing subject for the conservative party, but it is not, i think, an impending disaster for the british state. there may be some communities in southern england that find it hard to process a lot of people, but it is something

that is manageable, and the duty, legally, is clear. clive, let's just open this out beyond the kind of cross—channel blame game that is being presented in some of the media, to the wider forces at play here. at the start of the pandemic, we heard a lot of migration was on hold because of movement restrictions, but how is the pandemic playing into movement of migrants at the moment? it is a paradox, isn't it? you would think that because of covid—19 all the borders have been shut down, so it will be difficult for migrants to get on boats and across the sea. but actually, covid has exacerbated the problem. these people are already desperate — they are fleeing war and hunger and persecution. they are even more desperate now, because those areas, say in libya or parts of eritrea, these people are fleeing the continent of africa to try to get

towards europe, across the mediterranean, the little bits of work that they may have been able to pick up on the black economy in those areas has gone because of covid. so these people are now even more desperate to get across to the mediterranean. and we are hearing that the red cross in libya has been making the point that more people have been driven out of the country, despite the economic situation there, because of covid. they are now getting into boats, getting across to greece and to italy and, from there, they are trying to move further north to germany, france and, ultimately, to the united kingdom. that's why we are seeing how covid has influenced this whole situation. and agnes, give us a european perspective on this. the european commission was planning a kind of pan—eu strategy so that there was not all the name—calling and divisions across europe the last time this flared as a massive issue. where has this got to? well, not very far. as you said, we have had a pandemic since. and so the focus has

been put somewhere else. but, really, perhaps what the eu should look at first is to dismantle the criminal gangs and that trafficking industry that is thriving. it has become extremely violent towards the migrants and refugees. and so, when you think that refugees must pay £3000 to go on that dinghy boat with the hope of crossing the channel, this is appalling. but of course, since we're talking about the english channel and france and britain, there is brexit looming, so the eu might come up with a great strategy at some point in the future, but what about the british border? should it still remain in calais, in the northern shore of france? or should it be in kent? so i think that will be the next question for the borisjohnson

government. we are going to leave that question as we have to move on. we touched on the pandemic briefly, but now we are going to touch on it head—on in a big context of generational conflict. it may be unhelpful to talk about a hierarchy of suffering from coronavirus, but the longer this goes on, the clearer it becomes that different groups suffer in different ways and are impacted to differing degrees by policies to contain the pandemic. generationally, the contrast is stark. the elderly are most medically vulnerable, and the young may prove most economically scarred. jeff, do you think it is becoming clear at all, the impact on the generation moving into the workplace now, possibly in their very late teens or early 20s, some of the challenges that they face and the extent to which these are long term as a result of the effects of the pandemic?

well, i am reminded of the quote about what was thought about the french revolution and in the 19605 he said, "too soon to tell." i think these are huge social things that are going to be working themselves out for a while. i think you can draw some useful analogies with the last great economic crisis during 2008, which had a very outsized effect on young people's patterns of employment, which have persisted for that generation. the knocks they took at the beginning of their careers have continued. and it is interesting, in the us and the uk at least, the economic effects of the pandemic have been felt most acutely in the industries like hospitality and retail, where young people tend to predominate for their first jobs. i would expect this is going to have a long—term effect. you can certainly see university campuses are being upended, the nature of long—term teaching — whether there will be in—person

universities to the same extent, how much they cost. a big issue in the us, very hard to see how that is going to play out. there is also, however, an interesting poll in the us among young people. 60% said that they felt part of a movement because of covid and 80% said that covid had instructed them that politics affected their daily lives in a much more pungent way than they had realised previously. so it is possible this will lead to greater activism and civic involvement in the medium term. what do you think on that? great activism? do you a stronger sense of cohesion and purpose? there is always strong activism in france, so i'm not worried about french people not committing to political activities with the pandemic. quite the opposite.

it will be a positive for positive people who can reassess their lives at whatever age they are. every generation has challenges and bad and good things happening to them. asjeff said, there are core industries, where people like, in entertainment... looking at theatre in the uk, a lot of people have to change careers and, for some of them, it is going to be heartbreaking, really. but it is a question of evolution. at the beginning of the pandemic, the french writer michel houellebecq was asked whether everything will change after the pandemic and he said, no, everything will be the same, except it is going to be slightly worse. so it depends how you see life. and it will be positive for some and negative for others. i think we should be careful not to think it will change everything. that suddenly we will all

become environmentally friendly, we will stop using planes and the planet will be quiet and peaceful and beautiful again. we will probably resume some very bad habits, but perhaps not all of them, when it is finished. clive, you've done a lot of reporting on the antiracism following george floyd's death in minneapolis, and then we have obviously seen climate change activism, which had been very strong and we saw thatjust before the pandemic. do you agree with agnes, or do you think there is something different this time among this generation? i'm going to be optimistic in a way that agnes was pessimisticjust then. i came across an article online recently that talked about the death of fashion. you know, young people are no longer interested in the latest trends, apparently. they've realised that there may be more important things in life. the idea that you would spend half a day's salary going out on a saturday night or on a friday night — the end of the week

was critical to your life, going out, dancing, all that kind of stuff. lockdown has taken a lot of that away and a lot of young people that i've come across have said, i don't actually miss this. and you look at the black lives matter protest and at the campaign to promote activism on climate change, and you see young people getting more and more involved and more and more engaged. i am positive about the younger generation now, as a result of the pandemic making them realise that, actually, there are other out there that are important, not just the latest hemline. jeff, just to flip in the other direction. we heard the coronavirus would be the great leveller, because everyone could be a victim. but, actually, months in there's been a lot of discussion about the ways in which it has accentuated inequalities, whether generationally, or in terms of income, in an already unequal world. what's your view on that? is there any sign that political leaders have got a handle on that?

i think you can see in the stimulus packages that have been put forward in the major countries, at least. and, also in developing countries — a willingness to spend big in a way that the orthodoxy of the 1990s and 2000s that debt would kill that you and the bond market would come and destroy everything about you, if you overspent. that has obviously been disproved by the pandemic. the governments are spending big and they are spending on the bottom of the social hierarchy, as well as the middle and the top. i think the pent—up demand to do better in that way — more infrastructure, more education — hey, we can afford this, and you've shown us in these few months that might be possible. i think that could be a very salutary longterm effect of what has happened in covid. it has not happened yet. everyone is still milling around and figuring out what the long—term

political effects are. jeff, having asked a big question, i'm now going to have to cut you off, because i've got to get out on time and i have not even let agnes and clive have a word on that, but thank you to you all. it has been great, as usual, having you on the programme. that is it for dateline london for this week. we are back next week — same place, same time. thank you for watching. the heatwave conditions continue across southern parts of britain for pa rt across southern parts of britain for part two of their weekend and indeed into next week. temperatures will remain well above the seasonal average across much of the uk but in

particular across the south—east. it is going to be a warm and sunny day through the afternoon. that cloud eventually melts away, boning back to the coast. it could still be great across eastern counties and with that please feel cooler too. cloud dotted around elsewhere. perhaps for a western parts of northern ireland, too. for most you will see the sunshine and those temperatures are very pleasant. 20s in the north. very warm in england and wales with hot tub just across the south—east may be 33 degrees. on into this evening it stays mainly dry and warm and muggy. a bit of cloud affecting eastern counties of england once again and we could see a shower or thunderstorm develop across western areas later in the night. a warm and muggy night to come particularly for england and wales. temperatures no lower than 19 or 20 degrees in the south—east. into next week it stays warm and humid with quite a bit of sunshine around but there is the increasing threat of some thundery showers. they could really be quite heavy.

they could really be quite heavy. the devil is in the detail where the storms were developed. monday does look like we could see the greatest threat across western parts of the uk around the ibc into perhaps northern ireland as we head on into the afternoon but elsewhere plenty of sunshine around and it is going to be very warm to. one thing timidity creeping further northwards into southern scotland but again that i have 33, may be 3a degrees in the south—east. as we move on into monday and tuesday we see thundery though continuing to drift its way northwards. this is what is generating these thunderstorms and again on tuesday a bit of difficulty to pinpoint exactly where they will turn out but it looks like the northern half of the uk could be most at threat. there could be further once across the south—east into the afternoon. another warm and humid day for much of england and wales and also southern scotland. again, highs of the south—east into the mid 30s. it continues to say thundery through the week. warm with

sunshine around. there are signs by the end of the week of temperatures returning a little bit more normal. a little bit further for —— fresher for all.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. the first resignation following growing anger and mass demonstrations over last week's catastophic explosion in beirut. the country's information minister quits. the uk prime minister, borisjohnson, says it's a "moral duty" and a "national priority" for schools to reopen fully in england next month. i'm very pleased that the prime minister is making schools a priority. i've been arguing for some time that my fear was that children were being left behind in this relaxation of lockdown. 400 taliban prisoners are to be released after a vote by afghanistan's loya jirga or grand assembly in kabul.