Judicial pressure builds on France’s Fillon as vote looms

PARIS: French conservative Francois Fillon suffered a new blow to his ailing presidential campaign Thursday, with prosecutors ruling out dropping a probe into damaging claims his wife had a fake parliamentary job.
Three weeks into a preliminary probe for misuse of public funds the financial prosecutor’s office said “numerous elements gathered” warranted further investigation.
Fillon shrugged off the statement, telling the conservative daily Le Figaro there was “nothing new” in it and that it served merely to “fuel the media frenzy.”
The 62-year-old former prime minister has pledged to withdraw from the race if charged.
The revelations that Fillon put his Welsh-born wife Penelope on the public payroll have dragged down his poll numbers and boosted the prospects of centrist rival Emmanuel Macron ahead of the two-stage election.
Also bolstered by the scandal is far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who has stretched her poll lead for the first round on April 23 but is expected to lose to her opponent in the May 7 runoff of the top two candidates.
Penelope Fillon, 62, netted at least €680,000 ($720,000) as a parliamentary assistant to her husband and another MP over a period spanning some 15 years. She is accused of having barely worked for her salary.
The investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine broke the story last month along with revelations that Penelope worked at a literary review owned by a billionaire friend of her husband’s where she allegedly earned another €100,000.
Two of the Fillon’s children were also briefly on the parliamentary payroll.
Fillon’s spokesman Thierry Solere is also under investigation for tax evasion, Le Canard reported this week.
Fillon has asserted that he is the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by the ruling Socialists.
His lawyers argue that Fillon enjoyed discretion in the use of funds available to him as an MP and that the probe was therefore “totally inapplicable.”
Fillon, a staunch Catholic who won the Republicans nomination in November by campaigning as a man of integrity, was the long-time frontrunner in a race that has turned into a rollercoaster.
The main beneficiary of his woes has been Macron, a 39-year-old former investment banker who served as economy minister under outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande.
Hollande is not seeking re-election.
Seeking to shore up his presidential bid and silence critics in his camp, Fillon went cap in hand on Wednesday to his former Nicolas Sarkozy, a bitter rival during the right-wing primaries.
The former president, who had dismissed Fillon as a “Mr Nobody” when Fillon was his premier between 2007 and 2012, retains a base of loyal supporters.
Thursday’s papers were awash with editorials about the lunch meeting, with one commentator saying Fillon was made to drink a “bitter potion down to the dregs.”
Hours later at a campaign appearance, Fillon vowed, if elected, to lower the age at which defendants can be tried in adult courts to 16 — apparently at Sarkozy’s behest.
The candidate who wants France to drop the euro and pull out of the EU has a solid foundation, with 74 percent of her supporters who say they will “definitely” vote for Marine Le Pen, according to a new study by a leading university think tank, CEVIPOF.
In the survey of nearly 16,000 respondents, Le Pen came out on top as the candidate who “worries” the French the most, but also as the one “who really wants to change things.”