‘Fillon very likely wiretapped’
Centre-right sens back Macron presidential bid
PARIS, March 26, (Agencies): It is “extremely likely” that French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been the subject of wiretapping in the course of a judicial investigation, a campaign aide said on Sunday, in the latest accusations to be made by the Fillon camp against the authorities.
Fillon, a former front-runner who is now lagging in polls following a financial scandal, had earlier this week accused Socialist President Francois Hollande of orchestrating a plot against him.
In comments reminiscent of US President Donald Trump’s accusations against former president Barack Obama, Fillon and his team are now raising allegations of wiretapping.
“It’s extremely likely,” lawmaker Eric Ciotti, a close campaign aide, told Europe 1 radio and CNEWS television in an interview on Sunday, asked about reports that Fillon himself on Saturday said he was likely to have been wiretapped in the course of the probe into accusations of misuse of public funds.
“It wouldn’t be illegal but that would, once more, be a democratic scandal,” Ciotti said.
As with other accusations made by the Fillon camp in recent weeks, the wiretapping comments triggered some criticism.
“I don’t believe at all that there is any orchestrated operation there,” centrist Francois Bayrou, an ally of poll frontrunner Emmanuel Macron said.
“Conspiracy theories ... keep one from looking at one’s own responsibilities,” he said of Fillon.
Fillon, the 63-year-old former prime minister, had looked sure of winning the presidency after he won the candidate-selection contest in his Republicans party last November.
But he has fallen to third place — meaning he faces first-round elimination on April 23 — since media revelations prompted magistrates to open an inquiry into allegations that he paid his wife and children hundreds of thousands of euros of public money for work as parliamentary assistants they may not have done.
The frontrunner in France’s presidential election, Emmanuel Macron, received yet another boost to his candidacy
to President Vladimir Putin, was arrested while walking from a nearby subway station to the demonstration, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.
Navalny and his Foundation for Fighting Corruption had called for the protests, which attracted crowds of hundreds or thousands in most sizeable Russian cities, from the Far East port of Vladivostok to the European heartland.
The protests appeared to be one of the largest coordinated outpourings of dissatisfaction in Russia since the massive 2011-12 demonstrations that followed a on Sunday when nine lawmakers from a center-right party allied with conservative rival Francois Fillon decided to rally behind him.
The nine senators from the UDIUC party wrote a joint op-ed in the Journal du Dimanche weekly to say they would support Macron, a former minister in Socialist President Francois Hollande’s government, because of his pro-European stance and bid to go beyond the Left-Right political divide.
“Emmanuel Macron’s method is the right one,” they wrote, adding: “He wants to bring people together ... and trigger a new dialogue between the French people and their representatives.”
Fillon was the frontrunner for France’s April and May presidential election until an investigative weekly reported in late January that he had paid his wife as his parliamentary assistant for work she did not do. He denies any wrongdoing but magistrates put him under investigation, a first for a presidential candidate in France.
Forecast
Macron, an independent centrist who created his own En Marche! (Onwards!) party last year, is now topping the polls and is forecast to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in an election run-off. The high number of undecided voters, however, means the ballot remains quite unpredictable.
On Saturday, Fillon’s aides used an umbrella to shield him from eggs thrown by protesters in southwest France as the beleaguered conservative fell further behind Macron and Le Pen in opinion polls ahead of the April 23 first-round vote.
The UDI-UC has a total of 42 lawmakers in the French Senate.
French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen sought on Sunday to reassure voters concerned over her plans to withdraw the country from the eurozone, saying it “wouldn’t be chaos” and she would seek “well-prepared” talks with other European Union countries.
Opinion polls show the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front (FN) leader qualifying for the April 23 first round of the presidential election but losing the May 7 run-off to centrist
fraud-tainted parliamentary election.
The protests Sunday focused on reports by Navalny’s group claiming that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amassed a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards. The alleged luxuries include a house for raising ducks, so many placards in Sunday’s protests showed mocking images of yellow duck toys. (AP)
Police disperse protest:
Kyrgyz police used stun grenades on Saturday to disperse hundreds of people attending a protest rally Emmanuel Macron.
Leaving the euro is one of the FN’s stadard-bearing policies, both a mark of its anti-establishment stance that attracts voters angry with globalisation, and a likely obstacle to its quest for power in a country where a majority oppose a return to the franc.
“The euro triggered a very serious increase in prices and a very steep drop in purchasing power,” Le Pen said in an interview published in Le Parisien newspaper on Sunday.
“It is also a serious hindrance to job creation because it triggered a loss in competitiveness for the French economy.”
French voters just won’t tolerate corruption in politics anymore — that appears to be the message from the swift downfall of the country’s powerful security minister.
It’s a notable shift from the past, when influence peddling seemed endemic and politicians untouchable, even when they were accused of shocking scandals.
The change is the result of an aggressive new financial prosecutor, an unprecedented anti-corruption drive by Hollande, and growing public frustration with a political establishment seen as intent on enriching itself even as ordinary people suffer.
Hollande on Thursday inaugurated the French anti-corruption agency, a public organization focusing on business activity — the latest move in government efforts to fight corruption.
Five years ago, Hollande campaigned on the promise to make the French Republic “exemplary.” He probably didn’t think he would have so much clean up to do in his own camp.
Former Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux on Tuesday became the fifth minister to quit the Socialist government over financial wrongdoing allegations. Prosecutors opened an investigation into a report that he hired his two daughters for some two dozen temporary parliamentary jobs, starting when they were 15 and 16 years old.
The case comes as France’s electoral campaign is being affected by a string of corruption scandals ahead of the country’s two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7.
against the detention of a former parliamentary deputy and detained dozens of demonstrators.
The confrontation underscored growing political tensions in the former Soviet republic as it prepares for a presidential election in November. Its two previous presidents were toppled by violent riots.
Authorities detained Sadyr Zhaparov, who Kyrgyz media say plans to run for the presidency, when he returned to the country earlier on Saturday after spending three years abroad in self-imposed exile. He faces charges of taking hostage a government official in 2013.
Shortly after his detention, about 500 supporters rallied outside the security service headquarters in central Bishkek, demanding Zhaparov’s release.
A few hours into the rally, some protesters started scuffling with police and hurling bottles at them, a Reuters correspondent said. Police then forcefully dispersed the rally and the Interior Ministry said it had detained 68 people.
Zhaparov had been a senior member of the Kyrgyz government and an adviser to former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. After Bakiev was ousted in 2010, Zhaparov became a member of parliament.
But in 2013 Zhaparov was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison on charges of attempting to violently seize power after he and several other lawmakers attempted to force their way into the presidential palace during a public protest.
Zhaparov was released the same year, having served most of his prison time in detention awaiting trial. Also in 2013, his supporters staged another protest where some of them briefly held a provincial government official hostage. (RTRS)