France’s former PM and his British wife stand trial for €1m ‘fake job’ fraud
THREE years ago she was on course to become the first British-born first lady of France. Today, Penelope Fillon will stand trial with her husband, François, accused of embezzling more than €1million (£840,000) in public funds.
Mr Fillon, a conservative former prime minister, was the front-runner in the 2017 presidential race until his campaign was torpedoed by a corruption scandal dubbed “Penelopegate” by French media.
Months before the election, he was charged with paying his wife for 15 years as a parliamentary assistant, a job prosecutors allege she never did.
If convicted, Mr Fillon, 65, faces up to 10 years in jail and a fine of up to €2million. Mrs Fillon, 64, is charged with complicity and could be jailed for up to five years.
The scandal – revealed by Le Canard enchaîné, an investigative newspaper – ended Mr Fillon’s 40-year political career. He refused to stand down as the candidate for the Republican party, and his humiliating first-round election defeat cleared the way for Emmanuel Macron’s lightning ascent from obscurity to the Elysée Palace at 39.
Mr Fillon has repeatedly protested his innocence. In an interview last month, he said his wife had been “my closest member of staff, managing my diary each day”. He will produce a dozen witnesses to testify that she worked for him in his rural constituency in Sarthe, north-west France, but prosecutors say they have found no evidence to support the claim.
Also on trial is Marc Jouland, 53, who took over as the local MP when Mr Fillon
became a minister, and continued to pay Mrs Fillon.
The Fillons, both devout Catholics, have long cultivated an upright image.
They have five children and live in a medieval manor house with a chapel, stables and a swimming pool.
Mr Fillon, 65, now holds a lucrative job at a fund management firm. He also runs a foundation for Christians persecuted in the Arab world. A sports car aficionado, he is an official of FIA, motorsport’s governing body.
Mrs Fillon, a lawyer’s daughter, has been a councillor in her husband’s home town, Sablé-sur-sarthe, for six years and plans to stand again next month. After they married in 1980, her sister, Jane, married Mr Fillon’s brother, Pierre.
Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, Mr Fillon’s magazine owning friend, was handed an eight-month suspended prison term and a €375,000 fine in 2018 after being convicted of paying Mrs Fillon for work she never did, allegedly at the urging of her husband.