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.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO