Defiant Fillon faces ‘fake job’ charges but stays in French campaign
PARIS: French presidential candidate Francois Fillon announced on Wednesday that judges had summoned him to press charges over an expenses scandal but vowed to continue his campaign.
The 62-year-old conservative former premier was favorite at the start of the year to win the French presidency after clinching the nomination for the Republicans party in November.
But he has since been hit by a series of allegations that he paid his British- born wife Penelope and his children hundreds of thousands of euros since 1988 for allegedly fake parliamentary jobs.
Fillon said the charges were “entirely calculated to stop me being a candidate for the presidential election.”
“I won’t give in, I won’t surrender and I won’t withdraw,” he told a press conference on Wednesday.
It is the latest twist in an extraordinary campaign that has regularly wrong- footed observers ahead of the two- stage contest on April 23 and May 7.
Last week, French prosecutors launched a full judicial inquiry into Fillon’s use of his parliamen- tary budget, increasing pressure on his campaign which has been in crisis since allegations first surfaced in January.
He has been summoned to be charged on March 15.
Fillon has been defiant throughout the affair, insisting publicly that the facts would exonerate him and reminding his party that they have few attractive alternatives to replace him.
He said on Wednesday he was the victim of a “political assassination” and has accused the media of trying to “lynch” him.
He has pointed the finger at President Francois Hollande and the socialist government, which he believes has encouraged the investigations to discredit him.
Recent surveys suggest that farright leader Marine Le Pen and centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron are the two most likely to progress from the first round of the election on April 23.
Macron, a 39- year- old who only launched his political movement “En Marche” (“On the Move”) last April, is currently shown as the winner of a runoff vote on May 7.
He urged the justice system to be “allowed to do its work as normal” while reminding Fillon that victory in the election would not mean he was cleared.