France: Fillon faces more media allegations

By Hajer M'tiri

PARIS

More bad news faced French presidential candidate Francois Fillon on Wednesday as media reports claimed he had failed to step down from a paid advisory position at a corporate finance firm.

“As a candidate in the presidential election, he has not yet resigned from his position in the Ricol Lasteyrie group, which has earned him at least €200,000 [$215,400] in four and a half years,” claimed French investigative website Mediapart.

Mediapart stated Fillon was a senior advisor to the Ricol Lasteyrie group, quoting Rene Ricol, the firm’s CEO.

The presidential candidate has never stated this job publicly.

Fillon, addressing a closed meeting of his Les Republicains party, blamed political opponents on the left, describing it as a “constitutional coup attempt”, in comments carried by Le Figaro daily.

"I ask you to take a fortnight. I ask you to be totally supportive," he reportedly told senior party leaders at the meeting.

Wednesday’s allegation comes amid other claims the conservative candidate paid €1 million ($1.08 million) out of public funds to his wife and two of his children for allegedly bogus jobs.

And in an article published by investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine, it was claimed Penelope Fillon was paid over €830,000 for her role as a parliamentary assistant and €100,000 for contributing to Revue des Deux Mondes magazine -- which is owned by a family friend.

It was also claimed Fillon paid two of his five children an additional €84,000 to work as “parliamentary assistants”.

His campaign and party leaders had already been considering a future without the beleaguered candidate, Le Figaro reported earlier Wednesday.

-Office searches

Although it is legal for French lawmakers to hire family members, Le Canard Enchaine wrote the aide job was a fictional position and Penelope Fillon had never actually worked.

Those allegations led financial prosecutors to question Fillon, his wife and the magazine owner.

The couple said in a statement that they were questioned “at their own request” and “that they had "provided useful elements for the establishment of the truth".

Investigators on Tuesday searched Fillon's office in the National Assembly for evidence that his wife had actually worked.

They found she had no security pass and no email account there, according to Le Parisien newspaper.

Fillon, 62, earlier dismissed the reports and said his wife’s "work was real", citing examples of tasks she said she did as his aide during the late 1990s and 2000s.

He told French broadcaster TF1 last Thursday that he had also employed two of his children, who were lawyers, from public funds while he was a senator.

Fillon has said he will drop out of the presidential race if he is charged and criminally investigated.

"Only one thing would prevent me from being a candidate: it's if my honor was harmed, if I were given preliminary charges," the former prime minister told TF1.

An opinion poll published Sunday showed him losing ground to rival independent centrist, former economy minister Emmanuel Macron.

A poll Tuesday indicated 76 percent of voters were not convinced of his professed innocence.

WikiLeaks tweeted Wednesday it had over 3,600 documents on Fillon and more than 1,100 on National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.