French presidential candidate Le Pen refuses headscarf to meet
Lebanon's mufti
Published February 21, 2017
BEIRUT – France's far-right
presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused Tuesday to go into a meeting with
Lebanon's grand mufti on Tuesday after his aides asked her to wear a headscarf.
Le Pen, who is on a three-day visit to Lebanon this week and has
met senior officials, was scheduled to meet with Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian,
Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim religious authority.
Shortly after she arrived at his office Tuesday morning, one of
his aides handed her out a white headscarf to put on. Following a discussion
that lasted a few minutes, she refused and walked toward her car and left.
Le Pen has tried to raise her international profile and press her
pro-Christian stance with her visit to Lebanon, a former French protectorate.
On Monday, she met with President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister
Saad Hariri, declaring that Syrian President Bashar Assad was "the most
reassuring solution for France." She also said the best way to protect
minority Christians is to "eradicate" the Islamic State group preying
on them — not turn them into refugees.
On Tuesday, after walking away from the meeting with Derian, she
said that before it, she had told the cleric's office that she was not planning
to don a veil during the encounter and was not told not to come.
"They didn't cancel the meeting so I thought they would
accept the fact that I wouldn't wear one," she said. "They tried to
impose it upon me, make it a matter of fact. You can't put me before a matter
of fact."
She later met with the Maronite patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rai,
and Christian rightwing leader Samir Geagea.
The office of Lebanon's mufti issued a statement saying that Le
Pen was told in advance through one of her aides that she will have to put a
headscarf during the meeting with the mufti.
"This is the protocol" at the mufti's office, the
statement said. It detailed how the mufti's aides tried to give her the
headscarf and that Le Pen refused to take it.
"The mufti's office regrets this inappropriate behavior in
such meetings," the statement said.
Le Pen said she had met in the past with Egypt's Grand Sheik of
Al-Azhar, the head of the Sunni world's most prestigious learning institute,
without wearing a veil. Photos of Le Pen with Ahmed al-Tayeb in 2015 in Cairo
show her with the cleric without a veil.
Le Pen's refusal on Tuesday to don a headscarf would be in line
with her strong support for French secularism, and a proposal in her
presidential platform. French law bans headscarves in the public service and
for high school pupils.
Le Pen's proposal aims to extend a 2004 law banning headscarves
and other "ostentatious" religious symbols in classrooms to all
public spaces. While the 2004 law covers all religions, it is aimed at Muslims.
Later, a group of Lebanese held a small protest in Beirut against
Le Pen's visit. One protester raised a drawing of Le Pen's between Russian
President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, with
"Neo-fascists" emblazoned underneath.