Scandal-hit Fillon stays in race for presidency
French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon yesterday vowed to fight on for the presidency despite a damaging scandal involving taxpayer-funded payments to his wife for work a newspaper alleges she did not do. At a news conference in Paris, Fillon, 62, apologized to France for what he said was an error of judgment regarding the employment of family members, though he said his wife’s work as parliamentary assistant over 15 years had been genuine and legal.
Announcing he would not pull out of the election, due to take place in April and May, he said: “A new campaign starts this evening.”“I am the only candidate which can bring about a national recovery,” he said. Fillon, a former prime minister, called the news conference after members of his own center-right party, The Republicans, urged him to quit the race to give the party time to find a replacement candidate. Before the scandal surfaced in a weekly satirical newspaper nearly two weeks ago, opinion polls had shown Fillon to be the clear favorite to win the election, a two-stage ballot held on April 23 and May 7, over the far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Since then his approval ratings have plummeted and he is now seen failing to reach the May knockout.
A survey by Pollster Opinionway published yesterday showed independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker, challenging Le Pen in the runoff vote and winning comfortably. The weekly Le Canard enchaine alleged that Fillon had approved hundreds of thousands of euros to be paid to his British-born wife Penelope for fraudulent work as a parliamentary assistant. Fillon denied his wife had not properly carried out the duties of a parliamentary assistant and said the campaign against him and his wife was exceptionally virulent. — Reuters