France will stand by Lebanon and its people during this period of crisis, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday during a visit to the Middle Eastern country.

Macron said this after he planted a Cedar tree in a forest in an area North of Beirut to mark the 100th anniversary of Lebanon’s creation.

“I say it on behalf of the French: we will always be on the side of the Lebanese people,” the French president wrote on Twitter.

“Freedom, dialogue, coexistence are longstanding values in Lebanon,” Macron said.

He said Lebanon would be “re-born.”

On Aug. 4, a massive blast ripped through Beirut’s port, killing more than 180 people, injuring 6,000, and displacing more than 300,000.

The blast came as Lebanon has been reeling under the worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war ended.

Macron, who is on his second visit to Lebanon since the blast, also visited the site of the blast and met with representatives of humanitarian aid agencies.

He is due to later to meet Lebanese President Michel Aoun and representatives of the Lebanese political parties.

Lebanon is celebrating the centennial anniversary of the creation of Greater Lebanon, declared by colonial France in 1920 after World War I. Lebanon gained independence from France in 1943.