“Let’s Go” said French presidential candidate Mariane Le Pen when Lebanon Mufti insisted she wear the traditional Muslim scarf.
While on a three-day visit to Lebanon this week Le Pen was scheduled to meet with Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian, Lebanon’s top Sunni Muslim religious authority. When his aid insisted she cover herself Le Pen responded, “Let’s Go.” And go she did, turning around and walking to her vehicle with her entourage.
As reported by Foxnews.com:
France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen refused to go into a meeting with Lebanon’s grand mufti on Tuesday after his aides asked her to wear a headscarf.
Shortly after she arrived at his office Tuesday morning, one of his aides handed her a white headscarf to put on. Following a discussion that lasted a few minutes, she refused, 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. 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 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.”
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.
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 and all public spaces. While the 2004 law covers all religions, it is aimed at Muslims.
Read the entire article here: foxnews.com
VIDEO: France’s Marine Le Pen Walks Out On Grand Mufti After Refusing To Wear Muslim Headscarf
sources: foxnews, youtube, The Independent