Hezbollah's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday his Shiite movement welcomed French efforts to help Lebanon but that did not mean it would agree that any government or French President Emmanuel Macron could act like the country's ruler.

Nasrallah's statement came two days after Macron reprimanded Lebanon's leaders with some of the harshest rhetoric. The French president said he felt betrayed and was "ashamed of" them for serving their own interests ahead of their country. 

Lebanon's prime minister-designate, Mustapha Adib, quit on Saturday after failing to line up a cabinet consisting of independent technocrats, dealing a blow to a French plan aimed at rallying sectarian leaders to tackle the country's crisis. Macron also for the first time specifically questioned the role of Hezbollah as the movement, along with its Shiite ally parties, made demands that constituted a deadlock causing the efforts in forming a government to fail.

Nasrallah firmly rejected accusations of betrayal by Macron, but also said Hezbollah was still ready for dialogue under the French plan to lift Lebanon from financial crisis.

Hezbollah is still committed to the French initiative but "based on respect" and a new approach would be needed, Nasrallah said, adding that France is welcomed in Lebanon as a "as a friend and ally, not as a guardian of our country." 

Hezbollah is designated by a number of European Union member states as a terrorist organization. Both Germany and France previously differentiated the movement's military factions from its political factions, giving that designation only to the former. But Berlin has recently changed course, leaving France the only EU power that does not recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist group in its entirety. 

Nasrallah also accused Lebanon's Sunni former prime ministers, including Saad al-Hariri, of trying to exploit the French intervention to score political points.

Hariri leads a major political alliance that shares closer ties with France, while Hezbollah is under another alliance that differs with Hariri's on many issues including foreign policy.