France’s Fillon vows to battle on after show of support
PARIS — French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon on Sunday staged a show of support to bolster his flagging campaign before bluntly rejecting demands from within his party to quit over an expenses scandal.
After holding a flag-waving rally in Paris with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, Mr. Fillon defiantly said he would pursue his campaign, even as rumors spread of plans to dethrone him as his party’s candidate.
Asked in a TV interview whether he would quit, Mr. Fillon said: “My answer is ‘no’. Above all else, I see no reason to do so.”
“No-one today can prevent me being a candidate,” he said.
Senior members of Mr. Fillon’s Republicans party have called for the 63-year-old to step aside as he is to be charged over allegations he gave his wife a taxpayerfunded fake job.
Mr. Fillon had previously promised to quit if he were charged but has since pulled back from the pledge.
He portrays himself as a victim of injustice who intends to put his case directly to the people.
The party leadership is to meet Monday evening to discuss Mr. Fillon’s candidacy, but he dismissed suggestions they could remove him.
“Withdrawing my candidacy would lead to a political impasse for the right and the centre,” Mr. Fillon said.
Mr. Fillon was the frontrunner in the race until Le Canard Enchaine newspaper alleged in mid-January that he paid his wife Penelope and two of their children nearly €900,000 ($950,000) as his parliamentary assistants.
A new poll released Sunday confirmed he was losing support fast and would be eliminated in the first round of the election on April 23.
Most surveys show far- right leader Marine Le Pen and 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron would progress to the runoff on May 7.
Earlier Sunday, Mr. Fillon gave a speech to tricolour-waving supporters at the Trocadero Square on the opposite bank of the Seine to the Eiffel Tower.
He apologized for the expenses scandal but said he was sure he would be proved innocent.
His team claimed 200,000 people attended the rally but AFP reporters put the turnout in the tens of thousands. Police said the maximum capacity of the square was about 40,000.
Alain Juppe, a 71-year-old former prime minister, indicated to AFP on Friday through his entourage that he could be ready to replace Mr. Fillon as the rightwing candidate.
Mr. Juppe tweeted on Sunday that he would make a statement at 0930 GMT on Monday in the southwestern city of Bordeaux, where he is mayor.
The same Kantar Sofres OnePoint poll released Sunday showed Mr. Juppe would qualify for the second round if he ran in Mr. Fillon’s place. The survey of 1,027 people was carried out on March 2-4 and therefore before Mr. Fillon’s Paris speech. —