De Clerck and Malsagne note that no French president had visited Lebanon since independence before Mitterrand's trip.

Hanf calls the mass support for Aoun unprecedented: never had so many Christians followed a leader against their political and church leaders' pleas for calm.

Hanf: Elias Hrawi, the only candidate, won on the second ballot with 47 votes of the 53 deputies present, 5 abstaining, under Syrian protection; at the same sitting parliament gave itself four more years. Speaker Husseini had gone to Damascus on the night of 22 November. Traboulsi's chronology places the election on 22 November.