Le Pen refuses to don veil

BEIRUT: France’s far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen sparked controversy on Tuesday during her brief visit to Lebanon when she refused to wear a veil to meet the country’s top Muslim cleric.

On her last day in the small Mediterranean country, Le Pen arrived at Sheikh Abdellatif Deryan’s office in Beirut and was offered a white shawl to cover her blonde hair. The National Front candidate promptly refused and made a brief statement to journalists before leaving.

"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. She said she had told Deryan’s office on Monday that she would not don a veil: "They did not cancel the meeting, so I thought they would accept that I will not wear the scarf."