Le Pen in Lebanon holds first head of state meeting

BEIRUT: France’s far-right leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Monday met for the first time with a foreign head of state, holding talks in Beirut with Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun.

"We discussed the long and fruitful friendship between our two countries," the National Front (FN) leader said after her 30-minute encounter at the presidential palace in the hilltop suburb of Baabda with Aoun, the Middle East’s only Christian president.

Le Pen, who is leading polls of voters’ intentions for the first round of France’s presidential election on April 23, said they also discussed the refugee crisis in Lebanon, where more than one million Syrians have fled their country’s conflict, making up one in four of the Lebanese population.

"We raised... the concerns we share over the very serious refugee crisis," she said. "These difficulties are being overcome by the courage and generosity of Lebanon but this cannot go on forever."

The FN leader, whose party takes an anti-immigrant stance, called on Sunday for the international community to step up humanitarian aid to keep the refugees in Lebanon.

Le Pen also met Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri who cautioned against associating his religion with the terrorist attacks of the Jihadists who have repeatedly targeted France.