We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
FRANCE’S FAR-RIGHT PRESIDENTIAL candidate Marine Le Pen sparked controversy today during her brief visit to Lebanon when she refused to wear a veil to meet the country’s top Sunni 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 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.”
“They wanted to impose this on me, to present me with a fait accompli. Well, no one presents me with a fait accompli,” the candidate said.
Deryan heads Dar al-Fatwa, the highest Sunni authority in Lebanon.
In a statement the body said “its press office had informed the presidential candidate, through one of her assistants, of the need to cover her head when she meets his eminence, according to the protocol assumed by Dar al-Fatwa”.
“Dar al-Fatwa officials were surprised by her refusal to conform to this well-known rule,” the statement said.
Fewer than a dozen protesters gathered near Lebanon’s Zaytuna Bay this afternoon to protest against Le Pen’s visit.
“From Beirut to Damascus to Paris to Washington, fascists flock together,” one placard read.
‘Lesser evil’
One banner read “Fascists out!”, and demonstrators carried pictures of Le Pen and US President Donald Trump.
Today is Le Pen’s last day in Lebanon, where she met a foreign head of state for the first time — President Michel Aoun.
The FN leader, whose party takes an anti-immigrant stance, also met Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.
Islamic dress is a hot-button issue in France, where the full-face veil is banned in public places.
Le Pen’s deputy Florian Philippot swiftly lauded her controversial move.
“A magnificent message of liberty and emancipation sent to the women of France and of the world,” Philippot wrote on Twitter.
Shunned by European leaders over her party’s stance on immigration and its anti-EU message, Le Pen’s meeting with Aoun aimed to boost her international credibility.
France had mandate power over both Lebanon and Syria during the first half of the 20th century.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
so the Irish people that were trafficked weren’t trafficked…gotcha , I was beginning to wonder had that well known Leitrim to Donegal route kicked off again….
Keep allowing them in and soon enough it will be your daughters and granddaughters that Thell be grooming for sex. Not just yet, it’ll take more of them to live here before they get the courage, but it’s on its way, keep watching.
The people involved in this should be locked up for life ie 30 years plus
@Fjordie, the people involved in this will be out as soon as possible, this allows the legal industry to make more money off them the next time their caught, when again, they will be promptly released, and the legal industry continues to rake in the money, look at what happening now, people with up to 100 prior convictions being given suspended sentences, why, so the legal industry can make money from having their product in circulation.
Suspended sentences all round
Must have heard about the gravy train the you can go on after exploitation. #inbeforetheracists.
And the prize for most obnoxious troll goes to…
not to mention incoherent
What is conspicuously missing from this story is a very important question;
“How many of these children were in State “Care” when they were trafficked?”
We’ve had this conversation before, when it emerged that 500 went “Missing” from “Care”, but when the truth emerged it was found that the entire thing had been covered up by Gardai, the HSE and the government. The truth was that that we only found out because Wikileaks released diplomatic documents from the American Embassy in Dublin. While the government said they were “Missing”, the US State Dept. showed that most had been accounted for and were trafficked. Many of the children were found in brothels or enforced slavery.
You’ll have to pardon me for using quotation marks on the word “Care”. I wonder will Wikileaks have to step in again to find out how many of these children were in State “Care”?
So true.
Ireland is not known as the Hub of child trafficking for nothing.
Yes children in care are prostituted out- but the state never prosecutes itself.
No one in power wants to know and use excuses like – secret court rules, blahhhhhh,blahhhhh
The Immigrant Council yet again calling for ”the criminalisation of the purchase of sex”, completely ignoring the fact that coercive trafficking and commercial sex work are entirely different things. Amnesty, UNAIDS, The World Health Org and as of today the UK Home Office Select Committee all advocate decriminalisation but apparently the ‘experts’ of TORL, ICI & Ruhama know better.
Thanks lily ☺
Not a bother. Negative attention is still attention right? Lap it up pet.
your talking to me aren’t you? you realize you don’t have to? lol
@Lily, their beliefs and culture are not compatible. What would you say to anyone of the women who were abused/raped in Europe, or to the countless children, what you say to the mother of the young boy who was raped in a public swimming pool in Europe only to be told that the reason was the immigrant had a “sexual emergency”. And yes, our own countries have our own issues, but it’s committed by perverts, whereas it’s the accepted culture where these people come from.
Conri, Nowhere did I make any comment to suggest I condone violence or assault. You have done a marvellous job of reading subtext where there was none.
@Lily, As you have, no where did I say you did condone violence , you also have done a marvellous job of reading subtext where there was none, we’ve so much in common you and I. Actually I was just stating (as a comment in response to yours) that this is an incompatible culture and will lead us down a very dark path if something is not done to stem the flow, it’s been described as an invasion, I agree with this. Can you please respond to the following question: do you want to see some of our towns and cities end up like some of Britain’s, unrecognisable to English people, unsafe for them to venture into ?
have your say