François Fillon fights for his political life in France’s presidential election

Mar 5, 2017- Embattled French presidential candidate Francois Fillon was under growing pressure to quit the race on Saturday as his party leaders brought forward a meeting to discuss the situation and former allies shied away from a planned rally to support him.

Juppe, 71, who lost in a party-political run-off to Fillon a year ago, told reporters in Bordeaux that it was “too late” to enter the campaign, despite the flagging support for the scandal-hit Fillon.

Mr Fillon, a devout Catholic, beat Mr Juppe in The Republicans’ primary in November past year, pulling off a surprise victory by campaigning as a “clean” candidate.

Fillon will mark his 63rd birthday on Saturday, but a day that his entourage would once have feted for France’s president-in-waiting has been soured.

He received a personal approval rating of 64 per cent compared to 29 per cent for Mr Fillon.

“Our country is ill – resistant to reforms it knows are necessary, angry at political elites but susceptible to demagogues”, Juppe said.

And it does indeed seem to suggest a series of imperceptible shifts that add up to this: for the first time, the irresponsible, xenophobic, and crypto-fascist Marine Le Pen has the wind behind her and could, in fact, become France’s next president. Fillon, a former prime minister, is accused of paying his British-born wife and children hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money for jobs that did not exist.

Le Pen tweeted the images in December 2015, in response to a reporter who had compared her populist anti-immigrant, anti-EU party to ISIS. She also is also facing an inquiry into the alleged misuse of almost 300,000 euros ($317,000) in European Union funds that an EU watchdog says was illicitly paid to party staff between 2011-12.

Sarkozy said Monday he wants to gather Fillon and Juppe together for a meeting, but no one knows if that will make things better or worse.

“They say that I’m on my own”.

Alain Juppe had been the favourite to win the keys to the Elysee until Mr Fillon’s surprise victory in the primary contest for the Gaullist party now known as Les Republicains.

The so called “PenelopeGate” emerged on January 25 when French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine reported that Fillon had paid his wife and two of his five children about one million euros (1.06 million US dollars) for their jobs as parliamentary assistants.

Speaking for almost 30 minutes, he said: Even if this charge against me is unjust… They’re disillusioned by how he has handled the investigation into allegations he arran.

He has pledged to slash 500,000 civil servants’ jobs but the allegations about his expenses have led to barbs that his moral authority has been undermined.

Penelope broke her silence over the scandal earlier yesterday, telling Le Journal du Dimanche she had carried out “a lot of different tasks” for her husband, a former prime minister, during his career.