FRENCH President Jacques Chirac has said there appeared to be a "wish to destroy Lebanon" in reference to Israel's bombardments following the abduction of two soldiers."One may well ask if there isn't today a kind of wish to destroy Lebanon - its infrastructure, its roads, its communications, its energy, its airport. And for what?
"I find honestly - as all Europeans do - that the current reactions are totally disproportionate," he said in a live television interview to mark France's July 14 national day.
"In the Middle East we are currently in a situation of great fragility and instability. We are in a dangerous situation, a very dangerous situation. We must be very, very careful," he said.
The President welcomed the dispatch of a UN mission to the Middle East, whose aim he said should be to secure the release of the Israeli prisoners - including one held in Gaza - establish a ceasefire and study new security arrangements along the Israeli-Lebanese border.