BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri will travel to France Friday afternoon ahead of a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Future Movement MP Oqab Saqr has told Reuters.

Saqr said that Hariri was set to leave from Riyadh on Friday bound for Paris, ahead of a meeting with Macron scheduled for Saturday.

A source at Rafik Hariri International Airport told The Daily Star that Hariri's chief of staff, Nader Hariri, left Beirut to Paris via a private jet Friday afternoon. Local media reported that Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk also left for Paris early evening.

Saqr said that Hariri's visit to France would be followed by a tour of Arab states, before the premier heads back to Beirut.

News agency Agence France-Presse reported the Elysee Palace as saying that Macron will meet Hariri early Saturday afternoon. After receiving Hariri, Macron will meet with Hariri's family for lunch, the report said.

On Wednesday, Macron extended the invitation for Hariri and his family to visit Paris. Hariri has been in Riyadh – save for a flying visit to Abu Dhabi – since announcing his resignation from the Saudi capital on Nov. 4.

Reuters quoted Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil as saying he expects Hariri back in Beirut next Friday.

Separately, Macron said when he welcomes Hariri in Paris it will be as Lebanon's prime minister. He added that he expected him to return to Beirut in the "coming days, weeks."

Touching on comments made earlier in the day by a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, he said the country misunderstood France's "balanced" position in the region, which centered on not taking sides between Sunni and Shiites. He also said that Tehran should be less aggressive in the region.

Speaking in Gothenburg, Macron said he wanted Iran to clarify the strategy around its ballistic missile program.

"It seems that France has a biased view towards the ongoing crises and humanitarian catastrophes in the Middle East," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by state TV. "This view fuels regional conflicts, whether intentionally or unintentionally."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday France was worried about Iran's involvement in the Middle East crisis and its disputed ballistic missile programme.

"Iran’s role and the different areas where this country operates worries us," Le Drian told a joint news conference with his Saudi counterpart Adel Jubeir in Riyadh.

"I am thinking in particular of Iran's interventions in regional crises, this hegemonic temptation and I’m thinking of its ballistic programme," he said.

Iran has repeatedly rejected France's call for talks on its missile programme, saying it is defensive and unrelated to its 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. - Additional reporting by Reuters