France's Fillon popularity suffers setback after wife's fake job scandal: poll

French presidential election candidate Francois Fillon, polls' favourite to win 2017 presidential race, saw his popularity tumbling as a scandal over hefty salaries paid for his wife's fictitious job weighted on his bid, a poll showed on Friday.

An Odoxa survey for France info radio showed the conservative ex-prime minister had a 38-percent approval rating, down 16 percentage points from a month earlier, with more than two-thirds surveyed said he is not honest.

"Penelope gate cost heavily to Francois Fillon's image even if it was already deteriorated before that," Odoxa director Gael Slimane said.

Fillon, 62, had secured a landslide victory in right-wing primary over Alain Juppe by projecting himself as a honest and morally irreproachable contender.

On Wednesday, the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine reported that Penelope Fillon had been paid 600,000 euros (641,520 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 ex-premier told TF1 television his wife's "work was real ...legal and perfectly transparent," and which included press review preparation, meeting people for him and correcting his speeches.

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

"The question is why, while my wife had been paid from 1997, this comes out now, two and a half months before the election? Clearly this is to try and take me down as a presidential candidate," Fillon said.

According to media reports, Fillon's lawyer on Thursday presented evidence to financial prosecutors after they had opened a preliminary inquiry into the possible "misuse of public funds" and "misappropriation of assets," relating to Penelope Fillon's fake job.

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