FLY-BY-NIGHT Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri will leave Saudi Arabia for France, President Emmanuel Macron’s office said yesterday.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said he hoped Mr Hariri’s acceptance of the French offer would end the two-week crisis between the two Arab states.

But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said it was up to the Future Movement party leader when to return to Lebanon, denying allegations by Mr Aoun and others that Mr Hariri was Riyadh’s captive.

Former colonial power France made the offer on Wednesday night in an apparent bid to resolve the row over Mr Hariri’s flight to Riyadh where he announced his resignation on November 4.

In a pre-recorded message, Mr Hariri claimed he was fleeing an assassination plot by unity government partner Hezbollah, an ally of Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival Iran.

Mr Aoun said said Mr Hariri and his family will arrive in France on Saturday, “where he will rest for few days” before returning to Beirut to make “a decision regarding the resignation.”

He said he would await Mr Hariri's return “to decide the next move regarding the government.”

In Germany, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil, on a European tour over the crisis, told reporters: “Our concern is that he returns and takes the decision that he wants.”

In Riyadh, Mr Jubeir said: “The accusation that the kingdom would hold a prime minister or a former prime minister is not true, especially a political ally.”

He said: “I don't know the source of these accusations” — made by Mr Aoun and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — “but they are rejected and are baseless and untrue.”

“He leaves when he wants to,” Mr Jubeir insisted.

Mr Hariri promised earlier this week he would return to Lebanon within two days, but said his family would stay behind in one of several homes the dual Saudi citizen owns there.

In an interview with US news agency Associated Press on Wednesday, Mr Hariri’s elder brother Bahaa Hariri — who Saudi Arabia had previously backed to lead his country — said he supported the resignation “in the face of the growing demands and actions of Hezbollah, Iran's surrogate party.”

He said: “Only a pernicious outside actor, such as Iran and its surrogate, Hezbollah, can upset the balance as this group now seeks to take control of Lebanon,” he said.