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France's Fillon says not to drop out presidential bid after wife's job affair

Xinhua, January 27, 2017 Adjust font size:

French presidential frontrunner Francois Fillon on Thursday said he would stay in the presidential race despite allegations over his wife's hefty salaries for fake job.

"I'm a candidate...I always said that I could not be a candidate for the presidency of the Republic if there was evidence that I had broken the law, it is not the case," Fillon said.

"I knew that by presenting my candidacy to the presidential election I would confront all calumnies," he told TF1 television.

On Wednesday, the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine reported that Penelope Fillon had been paid 600,000 euros (640,319 U.S. dollars) for her job as a parliamentary assistant to her husband and for work at a cultural journal.

However, there was no evidence showed she had really worked, the report added.

Dogged by the political scandal months head the two-round election, Fillon rejected "abject" allegations, arguing she "had always worked" for him as parliamentary assistant.

The 62-year-old presidential frontrunner stressed his wife's "work was real ...legal and perfectly transparent," and which included press review preparation, meeting people for him and correcting his speeches.

He also unveiled that his two children, also did work for him when he was senator "for specific missions ... because of their skills".

Following the report over Penelope Fillon's fake job, French financial prosecutors said they had opened a preliminary inquiry into the possible "misuse of public funds" and "misappropriation of assets."

Under French law, lawmakers can hire family members that should be genuinely employed.

On November 2016, Fillon won the center-right Republicans party's primary run-off to represent the biggest opposition party in the 2017 French presidential race.

Latest opinion surveys showed Fillon well placed to unseat Francois Hollande, the actual occupant of the Elysee Palace.

Fillon would be more likely to face, and win over the far-rightist Marine Le Pen and would possibly meet independent centrist Emmanuel Macron on May 7. Endit