Feb 15, 2017

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen will visit Lebanon next week for talks with leaders of Paris's former mandate territory, a Lebanese government source said Wednesday.

"Madame Le Pen will be in Beirut on the 19th and 20th, and will meet (President Michel) Aoun and (Prime Minister Saad) Hariri on Monday," the source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The latest polls for April's presidential vote show Le Pen, who heads the far-right National Front (FN) party, leading with 27 percent in the first round, but she is not expected to triumph in a run off.

At her campaign launch earlier this month, Le Pen vowed to put France first and to fight "terrorism", and she has called for dialogue with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Aoun, who was elected in October, had allied himself with powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, which is fighting on behalf Assad's government in Syria.