Lebanon’s prime minister-designate quit on Saturday after trying for almost a month to line up a non-partisan cabinet, dealing a blow to a French bid aimed at rallying sectarian leaders to tackle the worst crisis since the nation’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Mustapha Adib, former ambassador to Berlin, was picked on Aug. 31 to form a cabinet after President Emmanuel Macron’s intervention secured a consensus on naming him in a country where power is shared out between Muslims and Christians.
A source close to Macron said the situation that led to Adib’s resignation amounted to “collective betrayal” by political parties but said France, the former colonial power, would not abandon Lebanon.
Under the French roadmap, the new government would take swift steps to tackle corruption and implement reforms needed to trigger billions of dollars of international aid to fix…