CES RICHES EXTRAVAGANTS VENUS D’AILLEURS (6/6) – Dans un village montagneux à 50 km de Beyrouth, des privilégiés aux fortunes diverses oublient les problèmes d’un État où tout se paie cash.
Envoyé spécial à Faqra (Liban)
« Welcome to Faqra Club, village fleuri, » announces the ink blue sign at the entrance to this vacation spot for the ultra-rich in a Lebanon in disarray. At an altitude of 1840 meters, with a view of the sea and guaranteed clean air, an hour’s drive from the summer humidity of Beirut, in the Kesrouan mountains. « A microsociety lives there in opulence, impervious to the surrounding reality, while war looms and some villages bombed by Israel 150 km away begin to resemble Gaza, » cynically summarizes the academic Karim Emile Bitar.
On the day of our visit, in June, most of the 200 villas were empty. The few people we met were members of the Porsche Club of Beirut out on a jaunt, who confided in us that they « needed to breathe » in a country where a cohort of refugees in search of scraps rummage through the trash. About 44% of the Lebanese population has plunged…
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