On Tuesday, the French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen cancelled a meeting with Lebanon’s Grand Mufti after refusing to wear a headscarf for the encounter.
Le Pen has been using her trip to Lebanon to bolster her foreign policy in the run-up to the April 23 first round, and may be partly targeting potential Franco-Lebanese votes, many of whom fled from Lebanon during the civil war and are now French citizens.
“You can pass on my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” she told press after the meeting was cancelled.
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”.
For many, this was less surprising. French law bans headscarves in the public service and for high school pupils. Le Pen also hopes to extend this ban to all public places, a measure that would affect Muslims most of all.
After meeting Hariri on Monday, Le Pen described President Bashar al-Assad as the “only viable solution” for preventing Islamic State from taking power in Syria, contrary to the current French policy.
“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.
Following their meeting, Hariri issued a statement.
“The most serious error would be to link Islam and Muslims on the one hand and terrorism on the other,” he 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.”
Recent polls suggest Le Pen is likely to get the highest proportion of votes in the first round of voting in April, but then lose in the second round, held in May.
Polls on Tuesday showed an increase in support for Le Pen, whilst socialist Emmanuel Macron and conservative candidate, Francois Fillon, remain unchanged.