Marine
Le Pen, leader of the French far right party the National Front, was at
Trump Tower on Thursday -- but not, apparently, to meet with
President-elect Donald Trump, according to Mr. Trump’s aides.
Le Pen, a candidate in this spring’s French presidential
election who has campaigned on an anti-immigration, anti-European Union
platform, was spotted having coffee in the basement of Trump Tower
Thursday afternoon. Asked by reporters whether she would be meeting with
Mr. Trump, Le Pen declined to answer.
However, Trump transition
spokesman Sean Spicer said Le Pen will not meet with Mr. Trump or with
anyone from his staff, noting that that Trump Tower is a public building
and saying he did not know whether Le Pen was still on the premises.
“Trump tower is open to the public,” Spicer said.
Le Pen is, however, a big fan of Mr. Trump’s -- she was one of the
first foreign leaders to congratulate him
on Election Night in November. Le Pen has argued that Mr. Trump’s
success is a sign that similar movements will be victorious at the
ballot box across Europe.
“Today, the United States,” she tweeted that night. “Tomorrow, France. Bravo!”
Mr.
Trump has spoken with French President Francois Hollande, but the pair
have not met in person. Were Mr. Trump to meet with Le Pen, it would not
be the first time he met with the leader of a country’s far-right party
before meeting with the country’s actual leader.
In November, Mr. Trump
met in person
with the United Kingdom Independence Party’s Nigel Farage, the public
face of the U.K.’s “Brexit” campaign to leave the European Union. He did
so before he had met with the country’s prime minister, Theresa May -- a
move that raised eyebrows in diplomatic circles.
Mr. Trump even
floated Farage as a British ambassador
to the U.S. at the time, saying in a November tweet that Farage would
do a “great job” in the role and that “many people” would like to see
him appointed to the job. However, May’s office in London replied:
“There is no vacancy.”
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