Dipping my head to walk onto an Air France flight at Beirut’s Rafiq Hariri International Airport last month, I suddenly found myself sitting next to some familiar faces. To one side of me I found former telecommunications minister Marwan Hamadeh. In the next row, I saw Bank Audi general manager Marc Audi, who was sitting next to Azmi Mikati, nephew to the Prime Minister, and in the last row sat Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Joumblatt and his wife Noura. Now, I was not overly surprised to find myself in such an assembly, as Paris, more than any other city, is our Lebanese home away from home. We may do business in the Gulf — and nearly everywhere else on the planet — but for savoir vivre, we return to the Seine. What did surprise me was that I fly business class and when I had stepped on board I
