Le Pen cancels Lebanon cleric meet, refuses to wear headscarf

FRENCH FAR-RIGHT National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen cancelled a meeting Tuesday with Lebanon’s grand mufti 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 alfatwa, the top religious authority for Sunni Muslims in the multireligious country.

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

Reuters A soldier stands guard at the site of a blast at the courthouse in Charsadda on Tuesday.