Two explosions were heard in Syria’s capital city of Damascus on Tuesday shortly before Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was scheduled to meet with visiting French President Emmanuel Macron.
According to the Syrian Interior Ministry, the explosions were bomb attacks that injured at least 18 people, including four police officers. One of the bombs was detonated near the Ministry of Tourism, while the other was near the Four Seasons Hotel, where Macron reportedly stayed during his visit.
The Interior Ministry said the hotel bomb was planted “outside the security zone designated for the French President’s residence,” and posed no “direct threat to the residence or the official visit program.”
In another statement later on Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said the “primitive” bombs were both detected by security forces, and detonated while experts were attempting to disarm them. One of the devices was hidden inside a garbage bin, while the other was planted in a parked car.
Macron’s office said the French president had already departed the hotel to meet with Sharaa at the presidential palace in Damascus when the explosions occurred. Macron himself posted a message on X saying the bombings would not distract from his diplomatic mission to Syria.
“Nothing can smother the aspiration of Syrian women and men to live in a fully sovereign, safe, pluralistic, and united Syria,” Macron wrote.
“This morning I met Syria in all its diversity. I saw dignity, courage, and determination. My visit continues,” he added.
In his own statement, Sharaa commended Macron for his “bravery” and vowed to bring the bombers to justice.
“The investigation is continuing and we hope to arrest as quickly as possible those who carried out this hateful act,” he said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there had been no claim of responsibility for the bombs.
Macron is the first European leader to visit Damascus since the alliance of insurgents and jihadis led by Sharaa overthrew dictator Bashar Assad in December 2024. Security preparations for Macron’s visit were extensive, including efforts to keep the precise time of his arrival a secret, although it wound up getting leaked to Syrian media.
Macron and Sharaa met on Tuesday as planned and announced that France and Syria would re-establish diplomatic ties, including their first official exchange of ambassadors in over a decade.
The French president is supposed to sign or oversee more than a dozen agreements with Syria during his visit, including deals with French companies for rebuilding water and power infrastructure that were damaged in the long Syrian civil war.
Macron announced on Tuesday that the process of returning assets stolen by the Assad family is underway, marking the first time the new Syrian government has been able to recover funds that were looted by the ousted dictatorship.
The money in this case was misappropriated by former Syrian vice president Rifaat al-Assad, uncle of the deposed dictator, who used funds from the state treasury to build a luxury real-estate empire in Europe.
Rifaat was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzlement in 2020, but escaped prison by returning to Syria in 2021. He escaped the fall of the Assad regime by fleeing first to Lebanon, and then the United Arab Emirates, where he died in January 2026 at the age of 88. Sharaa’s government began enquiring with Paris about the possibility of recovering the pillaged assets in February.
“Syria will be restituted more than 50 million euros derived from the seizure of the former dictator family’s ill-gotten gains. These funds will be returned to the Syrian people to finance concrete development projects within the country,” Macron said on Tuesday.
Macron said he was proud to stand against the Assad regime, even when it had seemingly won the Syrian civil war and much of the European Union sought to rebuild relations with the victorious dictator.
“We stood by the Syrian people when they sought unity and freedom, and we never wavered from that path. We remained steadfast to the very end and were among the first to reopen ties when the time came to do so, at the dawn of this new era,” he said.
“France believes in your country’s future — both in its immediate reconstruction and as a central player in the region at the heart of energy, logistics, and data interconnection corridors, and at the heart of the new bond to be forged between the Gulf and Europe,” Macron told Sharaa on Tuesday.
Macron came bearing gifts, namely 23 objects of historic and cultural significance that France “safeguarded” throughout the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State. The objects happened to be in France’s possession when the civil war broke out.
According to Macron, the Sharaa government reciprocated by agreeing to reopen some Christian schools and France’s main research center in Syria, the Institute of the Near East.