In Beirut, Télé Liban is broadcasting its news program in French under the threat of airstrikes.

A voice continues to emanate from the television, clear and measured, speaking in French. Télé Liban, the public channel, maintains its French-language newscast even as the military escalation between Israel and Hezbollah brings war closer to the capital's windows. Recently relaunched after decades of hiatus, this newsroom has become, according to several accounts, the only one in the country to provide a daily broadcast in French, an island of continuity amidst the alerts and sirens. The reader can easily picture it: carefully crafted sentences, a teleprompter, studio lights, and outside, a city holding its breath.

In the studios, fatigue seeps into the broadcast without ever truly showing. "The whole team can barely stand," confides editor-in-chief Nidal Ayoub, recalling a night punctuated by explosions heard from Beirut. The channel keeps cameras pointed towards the southern suburbs to document the Israeli bombings, while travel becomes riskier and reporting more difficult, sometimes reduced to a race against time. They work, they wait, they start again. Simple and terribly real.

A Francophone event held together by sheer willpower

The escalation is measurable, almost quantifiable. Between Tuesday and Wednesday night, at least nine people were killed in three Israeli raids in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army also ordered the evacuation of seven neighborhoods in Beirut's southern suburbs, a sign that the pressure could intensify. Since the fall of 2023, exchanges of fire have been almost daily along the Israeli-Lebanese border, against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and regional tensions, and the possibility of spillover looms like a persistent shadow.

Another, more silent battle remains: the battle of words. At Télé Liban, as in the state media, the war also weighs heavily on editorial choices and internal political decisions, with directives regarding vocabulary: the authorities have asked that the term "resistance" be avoided when referring to Hezbollah. Information Minister Paul Morcos sums it up bluntly: "Conflicting narratives exist deeply in Lebanon, and they tend to intensify in times of war." Between the fear of airstrikes and the cautious wording, this French-language news program also tells the story of a country searching for its balance and a public television station clinging to it, day after day.