BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati, on an official visit to France, made a brief stop Saturday to check on the health of his predecessor, head of the Future Movement MP Saad Hariri, who is the French capital recovering from injuries he suffered during a skiing accident in January.

Hariri’s press office said the two had met at the Future Movement leader’s residence in Paris, where Hariri has been recovering from surgery for the injuries he incurred while skiing in the French Alps.

In an interview with L’Orient Le Jour published Thursday, Mikati said he would, if time permitted, visit his predecessor as per custom and that the talks would not be political.

Hariri, who left office in January 2010 after March 8 coalition ministers forced the collapse of his government, is scheduled to talk Monday during an interview, via video link from Paris, to a local Lebanese television station, ahead of the annual February 14 rally Tuesday.

The March 14 coalition leader has described Mikati, who was nominated by the March 8 coalition in late January to replace Hariri as head of the present government, as Hezbollah’s “surrogate.”

Speaking during a rare television interview to MTV following his departure, Hariri said Mikati had betrayed by accepting the nomination, particularly given that the Tripoli lawmaker had won during elections while running on the Future Movement’s parliamentary list in 2011.

Hariri’s press office said the Future Movement had also received MP Nuhad Mashnouq, who is presently visiting Paris, and received cables from Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, who both wished him a swift recovery.