French Far-Right Leader Marine Le Pen Spotted at Trump Tower — Meeting Denied

Image by Getty Images

By Josefin Dolsten January 12, 2017

NEW YORK (JTA) — Marine Le Pen, a presidential candidate for the far-right French National Front party, was spotted at Trump Tower in New York.

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told NBC News that the National Front president was not meeting with President-elect Donald Trump or other members of his transition team following reports of her Thursday visit to Trump Tower.

Le Pen, a front-runner in France’s presidential elections, told CNN in November that Trump’s victory was “a sign of hope for those who cannot bear wild globalization.” She has criticized open immigration policies and said she was “opposed to a multicultural France.”

Trump has railed against illegal immigration to the U.S. and has said he will build a wall on the U.S.- Mexican border.

The National Front was founded by Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was convicted of genocide denial for saying the Holocaust was insignificant.

Le Pen booted her father from the party in 2015 and has sought to gain mainstream acceptance for the National Front by distancing herself and her party from anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Marine Le Pen in Trump Tower pic.twitter.com/YC3PU7eVcb

— Sam Levine (@srl) January 12, 2017

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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