While motorcades and bodyguards swarmed outside, Lebanon's billionaire Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri talked to The Irish Times in the salon of his Paris mansion overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

A portrait of his wife, Nazek, hung beside him. Yet Israel and the catastrophe in the Occupied Territories seemed nearer than Mr al-Hariri's meetings at Matignon and the Elysee Palace.

"Lebanon has very bad memories of Ariel Sharon and the period when he invaded Lebanon, occupied Beirut and let the Sabra and Chatila massacres happen," Mr al-Hariri began. "And there were smaller massacres that people have forgotten."

He was still a construction magnate in Saudi Arabia when the 1982 invasion took place under Mr Sharon's orders. He contributed massively to charities back home, and his pet project in 1982 was a $150 million university and hospital complex at Kfar Falous, near his native Sidon. Mr Sharon's forces destroyed it.

"Our memories of Mr Sharon don't inspire optimism," the Lebanese Prime Minister continues. "But despite his past we do not want to prejudge his future. We will leave the door open.

"If he is willing to implement UN resolutions and respect international law, if he is willing to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, and also from Syrian and Lebanese occupied territories, I believe the Arabs are ready to make peace, even with Mr Sharon."

When Israel finally pulled out of most of southern Lebanon last May, after 22 years, the UN and friendly Western governments expected the Lebanese army to move into the void left by Israel. Yet nine months later Beirut is stalling, apparently under pressure from Damascus.

"This is what Israel is asking," Mr Hariri explains, "because they want us to assure the security of Israel. But we want everyone's security to be assured through a peace agreement. Resuming negotiations, implementing UN resolutions and respecting international law will solve the problem. Whether we send the army [to the border] or not will not make a difference."

Mr al-Hariri says that, by occupying Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese land, "Israel leaves everybody else unstable. They force us to devote energy to this problem, to think all the time of a neighbour who is acting as an enemy."

He rejects allegations that the "Shebaa farms", a small area of Lebanon that Israel seized along with Golan in 1967, and which it has not relinquished, are a pretext invented by Damascus to justify Hizbullah attacks on the Israeli army.

"Syria wants peace," Mr al-Hariri says of his domineering ally. "They want their land. Nobody will have peace unless the Arabs get their land back."

The Lebanese leader wants the new US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, to include Lebanon on his tour of the Middle East next week. "If he comes, I will tell him we are paying a high price for instability and Israeli occupation. We know the meaning of war, and we want to live in peace.

"We are ready to assist any efforts to stabilise the region. But this needs a balanced policy from the US. The Americans have always looked after the interests of Israel. We want them to look after our interests, too. We want them to understand that we have public opinion as well. We have rights, and we will defend those rights."

Mr al-Hariri is waiting to see what the Bush administration will do, but in the meantime he is focusing his efforts on the Lebanese economy. He brought nine cabinet ministers with him on a two-day official visit to Paris to secure the support of France for an association agreement between Lebanon and the EU.

"In France there is a consensus to help Lebanon and stand by us," he says. The agreement, which could be finalised by this summer, will give Lebanon free access to European markets and, Mr Hariri hopes, encourage European companies to set up business in Beirut.

Lebanon is now £23 billion in debt, but Mr al-Hariri claims his government can achieve a growth rate of between 3 and 5 per cent by the end of this year.

"We are taking Ireland as an example," he says. Under Mr al-Hariri, Lebanon has reduced company tax to 15 per cent. Social charges may not exceed 15 per cent of salary, and there is a 10 per cent ceiling on income tax.

"We studied Irish tax laws, and we created ones very similar to yours," Mr Hariri continues. "For the Lebanese, the Irish experience is very important, and we are really trying to learn from Ireland, how they developed their country, what kind of laws and business environment they created."

There are at least three times as many Lebanese outside the country as inside, and Mr al-Hariri is inspired by Ireland's ability to bring its emigrants back. He feels confident that Lebanon, too, can make the transition from an agricultural to a high-tech society, that it, too, can attract university graduates with degrees in computer science and information technology.

Israel's occupation of the south stymied Mr al-Hariri's attempts to make Lebanon prosper in the 1990s. He does not criticise the other brake on Lebanon's development, the continued presence of tens of thousands of Syrian troops. He has only praise for Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father as President of Syria last summer.

"They will leave when we feel they are not necessary any more," Mr al-Hariri claims. "We believe we need more time to take responsibility for security throughout Lebanon."

He insists that areas of Lebanon, including Beirut, most of the Mount Lebanon range and the south, are under the sole control of Lebanese security forces. But what about the omnipresent Syrian mokhabarat (plain-clothes intelligence agents)? "I don't know of any army in the world that operates without an intelligence service," Mr al-Hariri answers.