Le Pen sparks controversy in Lebanon over headscarf
CANCELS MEETING WITH TOP CLERIC AFTER REFUSING TO WEAR SCARF
France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to wear a headscarf for a meeting with Lebanon’s top Muslim cleric yesterday and walked away from the scheduled appointment after a brief squabble at the entrance.
Le Pen, among the frontrunners for the presidency, is using a 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 Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri on Monday, she had been scheduled to meet the Grand Mufti Shaikh Abdul Latif Derian.
“I met the grand mufti of Al Azhar,” she told reporters, referring to a visit in 2015 to Cairo’s 1,000-year-old centre 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.
Buoyed by Donald Trump’s election in the US and by Britain’s vote to leave the EU, Le Pen’s anti-immigration, anti-EU National Front (FN) hopes for similar populist momentum in France. Like Trump, she has said radical Islamists must be faced head on, although she has toned down her rhetoric to attract more mainstream support and possibly even woo some Muslim voters disillusioned with traditional parties.
The mufti’s office 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.
France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to go into a meeting with Lebanon’s Grand Mufti yesterday after his aides asked her to wear a headscarf.
Le Pen, who is on a threeday visit to Lebanon this week and has met senior officials, was scheduled to meet Grand Mufti Shaikh Abdul Latif Derian yesterday morning.
Shortly after she arrived at his office, one of his aides tried to give her a white headscarf to put on.
“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.
“But it does not matter. You will pass on to the Grand Mufti my consideration but I will not veil myself,” the candidate said.
Deryan heads Dar Al Fatwa, the highest Sunni authority in Lebanon.
Le Pen met the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Ahmad Al Tayeb, in 2015 and photos of the meeting show her with the cleric without wearing a veil. Once she was told that customs are different in Lebanon, Le Pen walked toward her car and left.
Later, the mufti’s office 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.
Inappropriate behaviour
The statement 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 behaviour in such meetings,” the statement said.
Yesterday 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, whose party takes an anti-immigrant stance, also met Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri, a Sunni, and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil.
Islamic dress is a hot-button issue in France, where the full-face veil is banned in public places.