French prosecutor opens inquiry into payments to François Fillon’s wife

France’s financial prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation into the possible misuse of public funds by the right-wing presidential candidate François Fillon and his British wife.

A newspaper alleges that she has been paid about €500,000 in eight years from parliamentary funds for what it claims could be a fake job as his parliamentary aide.

Fillon, considered to be a frontrunner in May’s presidential election, is under pressure to explain Penelope Fillon’s role in his political operation after weekly satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné claimed she was at various times paid an extremely generous salary from public funds allocated to him as an MP for the central Sarthe region.

Hiring family members is legal for French MPs and not against parliamentary rules, as long as the person is genuinely employed. But the newspaper claimed it was unable to track down anyone who had seen evidence of Penelope Fillon’s work.

French MPs receive €9,561 a month from the state to hire aides and are allowed to use up to half of this amount to employ family members. About 10 per cent of MPs employ either their spouses or a child.

At issue is what work Penelope Fillon did to earn a salary of sometimes about €7,000 a month between the late 1990s and early 2010.

On a visit to Bordeaux, Fillon told reporters he was “scandalised” by the Canard Enchaîné article, which he described as “misogynistic”. He said: “So, because she’s my wife she shouldn’t be allowed to work?” He called it campaign mud-slinging, saying: “I see the stinkbomb season has started,” but he did not talk in detail about the nature of his wife’s work for him.

In a statement later, Fillon said he hoped to be interviewed by investigators “as soon as possible” to “set out the truth”, adding that the claims were “baseless.”
Fillon, who polls suggest should qualify for the presidential run-off in May against far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, won his Republican party’s nomination in November after unexpectedly beating former president Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister Alain Juppé in open primary elections.

Fillon drew support from Catholic voters with his stance on traditional Christian values and his attacks on the legal woes of Sarkozy, who is under formal investigation over alleged illegal campaign funding. Sarkozy has denied the claims.

Political analysts have said that the claims Fillon is facing are less serious than the legal action Sarkozy faces, but that they risk eroding Fillon’s image at a time when voters are antagonistic towards the political establishment.

“This kind of revelations can hurt him and could benefit the far-right,” Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher at left-leaning think-tank Fondation Jean-Jaurès, said.