France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has sparked controversy on the last day of her Lebanon visit, walking away from a meeting with the country's top Sunni Muslim religious leader after refusing to wear a headscarf.

The leader of National Front (FN) party on Tuesday arrived at Sheikh Abdellatif Deryan's office in the capital, Beirut, and was offered a white shawl to cover her hair. Le Pen promptly refused, walked towards her car and left.

Al Jazeera's Natasha Ghoneim, reporting from the Beirut, said that critics accused Le Pen, whose party takes an anti-immigrant stance, of staging the incident as a kind of stunt.

"Observers, pundits and voters here say that they believe that this was planned on her part because it would play very well to her far-right base at home, and also because they say it might detract from a growing scandal she is facing," Ghoneim said.

The presidential candidate is facing a corruption scandal as French police searched on Monday the Paris-based headquarters of FN in relation to a probe into alleged misuse of EU funds allocated to her as a member of the European Parliament.

"Everybody expected her to spark a new controversy, and right now Le Pen is embroiled in a new scandal, so ... people will perceive that as an attempt to divert attention from the legal consequences of her actions over the past few years," Yasser Louati, a human rights and civil liberties activist in Paris, told Al Jazeera.

"This was a trap and a set-up because she wanted to send a message to her own voters and supporters that she somehow refused to respect the local customs in a Muslim-majority country."

'Le Pen was informed'

Speaking to journalists as she walked away from the meeting, Le Pen said she had met in the past with the Grand Mufti of Egypt's Al Azhar, one of the world's leading Sunni scholars, without having to wear a veil.

"So, I have no reason to," she said, adding that she had told the grand office's office on Monday that she would not wear a headscarf.

"They did not cancel the meeting, so I thought they would accept that I will not wear the scarf," Le Pen said.

"They wanted to impose this on me, to present me with a fait accompli. Well, no one presents me with a fait accompli."

In a statement on Tuesday, the press office for the Grand Mufti said it "had informed the presidential candidate, through one of her assistants, of the need to cover her head when she meets his eminence, according to the protocol assumed by Dar al-Fatwa", the highest Sunni authority in Lebanon.

"Dar al-Fatwa officials were surprised by her refusal to conform to this well-known rule," the statement added.

OPINION: Elections in France: It's all about security

Tuesday is Le Pen's last day in Lebanon, where she met a foreign head of state for the first time, President Michel Aoun.

The FN leader also met Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.

Shunned by European leaders over her party's stance on immigration and its anti-EU message, Le Pen's meeting with Lebanese top officials aimed to boost her international credibility.

"This visit was viewed as an opportunity for her to enhance her stature, build her foreign policy credentials, and gain a better understanding of the Middle East," Al Jazeera's Ghoneim said.</s>BEIRUT (Reuters) - French far-right National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen canceled a meeting on Tuesday with Lebanon’s grand mufti, its top cleric for Sunni Muslims, after refusing to wear a headscarf for the encounter.

Le Pen, among the frontrunners for the presidency, is using a two-day visit to Lebanon to bolster her foreign policy credentials nine weeks from the April 23 first round, and may be partly targeting potential Franco-Lebanese votes.

Many Lebanese fled to France, Lebanon’s former colonial power, during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war and became French citizens.

After meeting Christian President Michel Aoun - her first public handshake with a head of state - and Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Monday, she had been scheduled to meet the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian

He heads the Dar al-Fatwa, the top religious authority for Sunni Muslims in the multireligious country.

“I met the grand mufti of Al-Azhar,” she told reporters, referring to a visit in 2015 to Cairo’s 1,000-year-old center of Islamic learning. “The highest Sunni authority didn’t have this requirement, but it doesn’t matter.

“You can pass on my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” she said.

The cleric’s press office said Le Pen’s aides had been informed beforehand that a headscarf was required for the meeting and had been “surprised by her refusal”.

But it was no surprise in the French political context.

French law bans headscarves in the public service and for high school pupils, in the name of church-state separation and equal rights for women. Le Pen wants to extend this ban to all public places, a measure that would affect Muslims most of all.

HARIRI’S VEILED MESSAGE

Buoyed by the election of President Donald Trump in the United States and by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, Le Pen’s anti-immigration, anti-EU National Front (FN) hopes for similar populist momentum in France.

Marine Le Pen, French National Front political party leader and candidate for French 2017 presidential election, rejects a headscarf for her meeting Lebanon's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian in Beirut, Lebanon. REUTERS/Aziz Taher

Like Trump, she has said radical Islamism must be faced head on, although she has toned down her party’s rhetoric to attract more mainstream support and possibly even woo some Muslim voters disillusioned with France’s traditional parties.

After meeting Hariri on Monday, Le Pen went against current French policy in Syria by describing President Bashar al-Assad as the “only viable solution” for preventing Islamic State from taking power in Syria.

Lebanon has some 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

“I explained clearly that ... Bashar al-Assad was obviously today a much more reassuring solution for France than Islamic State would be if it came to power in Syria,” she told reporters.

Hariri, whose family has close links to conservative former French President Jacques Chirac and still has a home in France, issued a strongly-worded statement after their meeting.

“The most serious error would be to link Islam and Muslims on the one hand and terrorism on the other,” Hariri said.

“The Lebanese and Arabs, like most of the world, considers that France is the home of human rights and the republican state makes no distinction between citizens on ethnic, religious or class grounds.”

Slideshow (9 Images)

Speaking after meeting French President Francois Hollande in Paris, Walid Jumblatt, the main political leader of the minority Druze community in Lebanon, said Le Pen had “insulted” the Lebanese and Syrian people.

“I hope France will make a better choice than this fascist right. We cannot ask the Lebanese people to forget the crimes of the Syrian regime against it and we cannot return en masse (Syrians) while there is the Syrian regime. It’s a double insult,” he said.

Syria dominated Lebanese government and politics for years and had a military presence in the country until 2005, when it withdrew following the assassination of Saad’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, and months of anti-Syria protests.</s>France’s National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to wear a headscarf for a meeting with the Lebanese Grand Mufti.

Le Pen was scheduled to meet Sheikh Abdellatif Deriane, the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, in his office in Beirut on Tuesday, but after arriving, Le Pen was asked to wear a headscarf. She refused.

According to AFP, Le Pen was given a veil by Mufti’s aides. Le Pen told reporters…

Le Pen noted that at a meeting in 2015 with Egypt’s Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar (a prestigious Sunni Islam title) she wasn’t asked to wear a headscarf.

The Grand Mufti’s press office however said that Le Pen had been informed beforehand of the headscarf requirement.

“Well done! You shouldn’t mix politics and religion.”

“A woman is free and equal,” “Bravo,” “A woman does not have to hide her face in front of a man.”

“There are those who speak about women’s rights and there are those who actually defend them. Marine Le Pen.”

Others on twitter were not so upbeat on Le Pen’s stance saying it was all for “show” and that Le Pen should “adapt” to the country which she is visiting.

Other twitter users said she “had been warned, so it’s just a show! Pitiful!”

Other speculated it “is all an ‘art’ of politics.”

The Duran Readers, let us know what you think?</s>France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has refused to go into a meeting with Lebanon's grand mufti after his aides asked her to wear a headscarf.

Ms Le Pen is on a three-day visit to Lebanon this week and has met senior officials.

She was scheduled to meet Grand Sunni Muslim Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian this morning.

Shortly after she arrived at his office, one of his aides tried to give her a headscarf to put on but she refused.

Ms Le Pen said she had met in the past with the grand mufti of Egypt's Al-Azhar, one of the world's top Sunni clerics, without wearing a veil.

Once she was told that customs are different in Lebanon, Ms Le Pen walked toward her car and left.

Ms Le Pen is leading polls for the first round of France's presidential election in April but the same polls show she would lose the deciding round in May.

An aide of Lebanon's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian, right, holds a head scarf as he tries to convince French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen to wear it during her meeting with the Mufti. Photo: AP Photo/Hussein Malla</s>France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen rejects a headscarf ahead of her meeting with Lebanon's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullatif Deryan in Beirut on February 21, 2017 (AFP Photo/Anwar AMRO)

Beirut (AFP) - France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen capped her visit to Lebanon with controversy on Tuesday when she refused to wear a headscarf to meet the country's top Sunni Muslim cleric.

On her last day in the Mediterranean country, Le Pen arrived at Sheikh Abdellatif Deryan's office in Beirut and was offered a white shawl to cover her blonde hair.

The National Front candidate promptly refused and made a brief statement to journalists before leaving.

"The highest Sunni authority in the world had not had this requirement, so I have no reason to," Le Pen said, referring to her 2015 visit to Al-Azhar, the prestigious Egyptian institution of Sunni Islamic learning.

She said she had told Deryan's office on Monday that she would not don a headscarf: "They did not cancel the meeting, so I thought they would accept that I will not wear the scarf."

"They wanted to impose this on me, to present me with a fait accompli. Well, no one presents me with a fait accompli," the candidate said.

In a statement on Tuesday, the body said "its press office had informed the presidential candidate, through one of her assistants, of the need to cover her head when she meets his eminence, according to the protocol assumed by Dar al-Fatwa".

"Dar al-Fatwa officials were surprised by her refusal to conform to this well-known rule," it said.

Fewer than a dozen protesters gathered near Lebanon's Zaytuna Bay on Tuesday afternoon to protest against Le Pen's visit.

"From Beirut to Damascus to Paris to Washington, fascists flock together," one placard read.

One banner read "Fascists out!", and demonstrators carried pictures of Le Pen and US President Donald Trump.

At a news conference to cap her trip, Le Pen insisted she "has never confused the religion of Islam with fundamentalist Islam".

"I oppose Islam as a political project. I am fighting a war against fundamentalist Islamists," she told gathered reporters.

Shunned by European leaders over her party's stance on immigration and its anti-EU message, Le Pen aimed to boost her international credibility with her first visit to a foreign head of state, President Michel Aoun.

The FN leader, whose party takes an anti-immigrant stance, also met Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.

Islamic dress is a hot-button issue in France, where the full-face veil is banned in public places.

"A magnificent message of liberty and emancipation sent to the women of France and of the world," Philippot wrote on Twitter.

France had mandate power over both Lebanon and Syria during the first half of the 20th century.

Le Pen has met few top foreign officials since taking control of the FN in 2011. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has refused to meet with her.

After leaving Deryan's office, Le Pen headed to Bkerkeh, north of Beirut, to meet Maronite Catholic Patriarch Beshara Rai.

There, she saluted Lebanon's "moderate" culture, "created by Christians and Muslims".

The candidate also met Samir Geagea, who heads the Lebanese Forces party and is a fierce opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Geagea, in a statement released by his party, said he had "clarified" to Le Pen that Assad remains "one of the biggest terrorists in Syria and in this region".

In an interview with Lebanon's L'Orient-Le Jour, Le Pen had called Assad "the lesser evil" compared with the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria.

But she insisted at her news conference Tuesday that she had never met Assad and does not support him.

"What I am saying is that in the interest of France, which is my sole perspective, and in the current state of the situation in Syria, there is no alternative to the regime," Le Pen said.

She has criticised the EU's calls for Assad to stand down after nearly six years of war that have left more than 310,000 people dead.

"Marine Le Pen's statements in Lebanon are an insult to the Lebanese people and the Syrian people," wrote Lebanese Druze chief Walid Jumblatt on Twitter.</s>BEIRUT – France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to don a headscarf for a meeting with Lebanon’s top Sunni Muslim cleric on Tuesday and walked away from the scheduled appointment after a brief squabble at the entrance.

The debacle topped Le Pen’s three-day visit to Lebanon, where she held her first campaign meeting with a head of state.

It drew the focus to her strong support for secularism and a proposal in her presidential platform that promotes banishing headscarves and other obvious religious symbols in all public spaces.

“I consider the headscarf a symbol of a woman’s submission,” Le Pen told reporters at the end of her visit. “I will not put on the veil.”

Le Pen compared her refusal to wear the headscarf to the decision by former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama to decline wearing one during her state visit to Saudi Arabia.

“I note that when Marine Le Pen refuses to don the headscarf, it is criticized, but when Michelle Obama refused to do it in Saudi Arabia, it was considered admirable,” she said, soliciting applause from the accompanying delegation.

Journalists shouted back that the two situations were not comparable because one is a state visit while the other is to a religious body_ Le Pen dismissed the criticism.

French law already bans headscarves in all classrooms except universities. She has proposed extending the 2004 law banning headscarves and other “ostentatious” religious symbols in classrooms to all public spaces. While the law covers all religions, it is widely viewed as aimed at Muslims.

When asked if she fears her proposal may ignite the anger of the Muslim community, she said: “When in Rome do as the Romans do.”

The headscarf incident occurred ahead of a scheduled meeting with Lebanon’s grand mufti, Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian.

Shortly after Le Pen arrived at his office, one of his aides handed her a white headscarf to put on. Following a discussion with his aides that lasted a few minutes, she refused and returned to her car.

Le Pen said she had informed her host the night before that she would not wear the scarf but they didn’t cancel the meeting. Instead, she said, “They tried to impose it upon me.”

She said the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar, the head of the Sunni world’s most prestigious learning institute, didn’t require her to don the headscarf. Photos of Le Pen with Ahmed al-Tayeb in 2015 in Cairo show her with her hair uncovered.

The officials at the mufti’s office “kept the meeting and consequently put me before a fait accompli,” she said. “I stuck to my position, because when I take a position it corresponds to a conviction. If (you don’t like it) never mind.”

The office of Lebanon’s mufti issued a statement saying that Le Pen was told in advance through one of her aides that she would have to put on a headscarf during the meeting with the mufti.

“This is the protocol” at the mufti’s office, the statement said. It said 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 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, a Christian, and Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim. She said Syrian President Bashar Assad was “the most reassuring solution for France,” adding that the best way to protect minority Christians is to “eradicate” the Islamic State group.

In her final press conference, she said that there is currently no alternative to the Assad government. She said she considered it a “mistake” that the French government had closed its embassy in Damascus, which undermined relations between French and Syrian security agencies that she said could have helped thwart terrorist attacks in France.

Some Lebanese officials, including Hariri, have taken umbrage at what is widely seen as her stigmatization of Muslims, whom her supporters claim are changing the Christian face of France.

There was also apparent displeasure at her comments on Assad, including from some Lebanese allies.

Christian right-wing leader Samir Geagea said after meeting with Le Pen that “terrorism has no religion.” He described Assad as “the biggest terrorist in Syria and the region.”

Walid Jumblatt, a leftist politician in Lebanon, tweeted that Le Pen’s statements in Lebanon “were an insult toward the Lebanese people and Syrian people.”

Later Tuesday, a group of Lebanese held a small protest in Beirut against Le Pen’s visit. One protester raised a drawing of Le Pen between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, with “Neo-fascists” emblazoned underneath.

Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb in Beirut and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.</s>Andrea Rosa and Hussein Malla, The Associated Press 

 



BEIRUT -- France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to don a headscarf for a meeting with Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim cleric on Tuesday and walked away from the scheduled appointment after a brief squabble at the entrance.

Le Pen, who is on a three-day visit to Lebanon this week and has met senior officials, was to meet with the country's grand mufti, Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian.

Shortly after she arrived at his office, one of his aides handed her a white headscarf to put on. Following a discussion with his aides that lasted few minutes, she refused and returned to her car.

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. She said Syrian President Bashar Assad was "the most reassuring solution for France," adding that the best way to protect minority Christians is to "eradicate" the Islamic State group preying on them -- not turn them into refugees.

Some Lebanese officials including, including Hariri, a Sunni, have taken umbrage at what is widely seen as her stigmatization of Muslims, who her followers claim are changing the Christian face of France. There was also apparent displeasure at her comments on Assad.

Christian right-wing leader Samir Geagea said after meeting with Le Pen on Tuesday that "terrorism has no religion." He described Assad as "the biggest terrorist in Syria and the region."

Walid Jumblatt, a leftist politician in Lebanon, tweeted on Tuesday that Le Pen's statements in Lebanon "were an insult toward the Lebanese people and Syrian people."

After walking away from the meeting with the grand mufti, Le Pen said she had previously told the cleric's office that she would not wear a headscarf.

"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."

The office of Lebanon's mufti issued a statement saying that Le Pen was told in advance through one of her aides that she would have to put on a headscarf during the meeting with the mufti.

"This is the protocol" at the mufti's office, the statement said. It said 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 behaviour in such meetings," the statement said.

Le Pen said she had met in the past with Egypt's Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the head of the Sunni world's most prestigious learning institute, without wearing a headscarf. Photos of Le Pen with Ahmed al-Tayeb in 2015 in Cairo show her with the cleric with her hair uncovered.

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 Tuesday, a group of Lebanese held a small protest in Beirut against Le Pen's visit. One protester raised a drawing of Le Pen between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, with "Neo-fascists" emblazoned underneath.

Associated Press writers Andrea Rosa in Beirut and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report</s>BEIRUT-- France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen capped her visit to Lebanon with controversy on Tuesday when she refused to wear a headscarf to meet the country's top Sunni Muslim cleric.

On her last day in the Mediterranean country, Le Pen arrived at Sheikh Abdellatif Deryan's office in Beirut and was offered a white shawl to cover her blonde hair.

The National Front candidate promptly refused and made a brief statement to journalists before leaving.

"The highest Sunni authority in the world had not had this requirement, so I have no reason to," Le Pen said, referring to her 2015 visit to Al-Azhar, the prestigious Egyptian institution of Sunni Islamic learning.

She said she had told Deryan's office on Monday that she would not don a headscarf: "They did not cancel the meeting, so I thought they would accept that I will not wear the scarf."

"They wanted to impose this on me, to present me with a fait accompli. Well, no one presents me with a fait accompli," the candidate said.

In a statement on Tuesday, the body said "its press office had informed the presidential candidate, through one of her assistants, of the need to cover her head when she meets his eminence, according to the protocol assumed by Dar al-Fatwa."

"Dar al-Fatwa officials were surprised by her refusal to conform to this well-known rule," it said.

Fewer than a dozen protesters gathered near Lebanon's Zaytuna Bay on Tuesday afternoon to protest against Le Pen's visit.

"From Beirut to Damascus to Paris to Washington, fascists flock together," one placard read.

One banner read "Fascists out!," and demonstrators carried pictures of Le Pen and U.S. President Donald Trump.

At a news conference to cap her trip, Le Pen insisted she "has never confused the religion of Islam with fundamentalist Islam."

"I oppose Islam as a political project. I am fighting a war against fundamentalist Islamists," she told gathered reporters.</s>National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen refused to use headscarf when she was supposed meet one of Lebanon’s main religious leaders. The meeting was therefore canceled.

French Le Pen is on a three day visit to Lebanon, and on Tuesday she planned to meet the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian.

The meeting was canceled shortly after Le Pen arrived Grand Mufti office. According to news agency AP one of the staff to Mufti tried to give Le Pen a headscarf.

– You can bring my respect to the Grand Mufti, but I will not cover up, Le Pen told reporters afterwards, according to Reuters.

The right-wing populist party leader and presidential candidate said she previously met Egypt’s Grand Mufti, where she didn’t have to use headscarf.

Grand Muftis press office stated that they had notified in advance that Le Pen had to use headscarf at the meeting.</s>Marine Le Pen, presidential candidate for France’s far-right National Front party, canceled a meeting on Tuesday with Lebanon’s Grand Mufti after refusing to wear a headscarf for the encounter.

Le Pen was scheduled to meet Sheikh Abdellatif Deriane, the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, in his office in Beirut on Tuesday.

After arriving, Le Pen was asked to wear a headscarf, but refused. According to AFP, Le Pen was given a veil by Mufti’s aides.

“You can pass on my respects to the Grand Mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” Le Pen told reporters.

She refused and said she had met in the past with the grand mufti of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, one of the world’s top Sunni clerics, without wearing a veil.

Le Pen arrived in Beirut on 19 February for a three-day official visit to meet with Lebanese officials and to bolster her presidential credentials.

Opinion polls say Le Pen is likely to get the highest score in the first round of voting in April, but then lose to a mainstream candidate in the decisive second round vote in May.
French National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen leaves before her scheduled meeting in Beirut with Lebanon's top Sunni Muslim religious leader, Grand Mufti Abdellatif Deryan, following her refusal to accept the offered headscarf to cover her hair. Le Pen's aides had been informed earlier about the traditional, religious need for a headscarf for this meeting.