French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was wrong to refuse to wear a headscarf when she was about to meet Lebanon’s top Muslim religious leader on her recent visit to Beirut. Her refusal forced a last-minute cancellation of her scheduled meeting with the Grand Mufti of Lebanon Sheikh Abdel-Latif Deryan. Granted, Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front Party, has been outspoken in her opposition to the headscarf. However, she should have worn one simply out of respect. She was not asked to convert to Islam. She was not asked to identify with the religion or even like it. She was simply being asked to show some courtesy for a few minutes. It appears there was a misunderstanding before the meeting. Le Pen said the mufti’s office knew beforehand she would not wear a scarf whereas the office said she had agreed to don it. Regardless of the communication mix-up, it is more than likely that Le Pen took the opportunity to play the miscue up to the hilt. She was grandstanding, playing to her audience at home, those core supporters who fervently support her election platform to drastically reduce immigrants coming to France, many of whom are Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa.
In that regard, Le Pen is very much like Donald Trump. They both have the same ability to sense the voters’ mood in their countries, a knack that propelled Trump to the White House last year.
Trump was a long-shot candidate and so is Le Pen. While she remains a favorite to win the first round of France’s presidential election on April 23, polls say she would lose the May 7 runoff against either the center-right’s Francois Fillon or centrist Emmanuel Macron. The announcement that veteran centrist Francois Bayrou would ally with Macron rather than stand himself could boost Macron at Fillon’s expense.
Fillon and Le Pen are both facing corruption scandals that could derail their presidential prospects. Le Pen has refused an order from the European Parliament to repay about €336,000 in funds that the chamber says were used inappropriately in paying two aides. The accusations have echoes of a scandal surrounding Fillon, with prosecutors looking into allegations that he paid his wife and children €880,000 of taxpayers’ money for doing almost no work. Naturally, the two candidates are slamming the allegations as politically motivated plots with the elections just two months away. As well they should because according to a new report, the public in France is reacting badly to corruption scandals.
Le Pen’s timing in Lebanon could not have been better. On the same day that she snubbed Lebanon’s mufti, police arrested three suspects in southern France for plotting what they called “an imminent terror attack.” The incident, juxtaposed with Le Pen’s perceived victory over the mufti, will reinforce her tough hardline posture, especially against immigrants, especially against Muslims. Her slight is sure to play extremely well with her far-right base at home. Le Pen wants an earthquake similar to Brexit and Trump. She is still unlikely to become president of France, but you never know. The polls on Brexit and Trump were dead wrong. It is conceivable that Le Pen may stun France and the world.
But Le Pen should not lose sight of why she went to Lebanon in the first place. Apart from courting Franco-Lebanese votes ahead of the elections, the visit was aimed at boosting her international credibility. It was an opportunity for her to enhance her stature abroad and at home and build her foreign policy chops. She did meet, among others, the Lebanese president. But her snub of the Lebanese mufti was not presidential looking and may not persuade more liberal voters that she is fit to hold the highest office.
