Scandal, fraud claims and ‘Corbyn candidate’ blow French election wide open

Frontrunner Fillon’s ‘fake job’ for his wife and huge splits in the Left make for most uncertain contest yet

FRANCE’S presidential race has been thrown wide open amid allegations that the British wife of frontrunner François Fillon received €500,000 (£426,000) for a fake job as his parliamentary assistant and as French Socialists are poised to elect a Corbyn-style Leftist as their nominee today.

With fewer than 100 days to go before the election, analysts have likened the race to a vast “ice-skating rink” and the most uncertain in the Fifth Republic.

When Mr Fillon takes to the stage in Paris today to deliver his cornerstone presidential campaign speech, all eyes will be on his wife, Penelope. Aides insist she will be by his side as proof she plays a hands-on role in her husband’s political career, albeit a highly discreet one. Last year she told a French journalist she had “never been involved in her husband’s political life”.

Aides insist the revelations in the investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which have prompted financial prosecutors to launch a lightning preliminary inquiry, could act as a salutary “crash test” of Mr Fillon’s resilience.

“He’ll come out of it reinforced if the French perceive that the essentials have been preserved, namely his rigour and his honesty,” said Right-wing MP Guillaume Larrivé.

But Le Parisien cited one member of his camp as lamenting: “He’s in the process of losing the election.”

Such is the concern, speculation is now rife that Les Républicains will need to find a replacement less than two months after Mr Fillon unexpectedly triumphed in party primaries.

Until now, Mr Fillon’s main challenger had been seen as far-Right Front National leader Marine Le Pen, but her party is also having a tough time, facing a fraud investigation for the use of more than €300,000 (£255,000) in European parliament funds to employ staff who allegedly carried out political activity. The party denies wrongdoing.

Gaining ground in third place is maverick ex-economy minister Emmanuel Macron, running a “neither Left nor Right” campaign with his new party En Marche. He is followed by hard-Left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has also formed a new party La France insoumise (Unsubmissive France).

Slumped in fifth place the ruling Socialists face a potentially catastrophic split after today’s primary run-off between Manuel Valls, the reformist exprime minister, and Benôit Hamon, a Leftist likened to Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Valls has already said he will not back Mr Hamon with one of his aides warning: “A victory for Benoît Hamon will see hundreds [of MPs] leave”.

“This presidential race has become an ice-skating rink and no candidate is assured of reaching the second round,” Bruno Jeudy, political editor of Paris

Match, told The Sunday Telegraph. “This is one of the most breathless of the Fifth Republic.”