Rep. Paul to meet with French anti-immigration party leader (Marine Le Pen)
Le Pen succeeded her father, the notorious Jean-Marie Le Pen, as president of the openly racist National Front.
The leader of a French far-right anti-immigration political party plans to sit down with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) next month.
Agence France Press reports that Marie Le Pen, the leader of the National Front Party in France, plans to meet with Paul and any other willing Republican presidential candidate when she visits the U.S. in November.
“Madame Le Pen has requested a meeting and Congressman Paul has agreed to a meeting, if he is in town, and as of today it looks like he will be,” Paul Communications Director Rachel Mills said in an email to AFP.
“Congressman Paul is also open to meeting with any of the other candidates, it should be noted,” Mills added.
Le Pen is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen who founded the National Front Party and ran as its presidential candidate in the French elections. In April, The New York Times ran a profile of Le Pen and reported that under her leadership, the National Front Party has been reinvigorated and polls “show her matching or outpacing” President Nicolas Sarkozy. The National Front has repeatedly been criticized as a not-too-subtly or just outright racist political party.
Le Pen has reportedly said she hopes to meet with Democrats as well.
The French politician also praised Paul as “a great defender of an international monetary system anchored on the gold standard,” according to AFP.
