On 30 July, Rhiannon Smith, the managing director of Libya Analysis, was quoted in an article for The Media Line written by Nola Valente. Drawing on the recent visit of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to Libya, the article analyses the different approaches undertaken by international powers such as France or Italy to mediate between Libya’s political factions. Over the past months, France has signaled a shift in its policy towards Libya, Valente notes, focusing mostly on the organization of elections in Libya. Interviewed by Valente, Smith said:
The key issue in the whole Paris process, and also part of the UN process before, is agreeing to big, lofty principles of holding elections with absolutely no framework for actually implementing them. [...] Everyone is kind of panicking because no one knows how elections will happen, who will run them, or what power those elected will have, so this early push to elections is having a detrimental effect on Libyan political stability.
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