PARIS — French conservative Francois Fillon suffered new setbacks Thursday to his presidential candidacy, with prosecutors expanding an embezzlement probe into his wife’s paid political job to include two of their children.
An old interview, meanwhile, is coming back to haunt his wife, Penelope.
French national financial prosecutors have been investigating Penelope Fillon’s work as a parliamentary aide to her husband, seeking to determine whether there are grounds to suspect embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds. The Canard Enchaine weekly reported Wednesday that she made 830,000 euros ($900,000) over 15 years.
A person close to the investigation told The Associated Press on Thursday that prosecutors have extended the probe to also cover the couple’s daughter, Marie, and son, Charles. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, because they were barred from discussing the investigation publicly.
Allegations that Fillon’s family used his political connections to enrich themselves with cushy parliamentary jobs have been particularly damaging for the former prime minister’s image as an upstanding Catholic family man and country gentleman untainted by the long history of sleaze in French politics. The contrast between Fillon’s words and his supposed actions sting because he has promised to slash public sector jobs and make the French work harder and longer.
His nose-diving prospects of winning France’s two-round presidential election in April and May have thrown open the race that had been expected to be between him and the far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen.
The Canard Enchaine reported that Fillon hired his children as parliamentary aides when he was a French senator from 2005-2007, and they earned 84,000 euros ($91,000) in total.
Fillon has confirmed that he paid two of his children, “who were lawyers,” for “specific assignments” when he was a senator. However, Marie and Charles still were in law school when they worked for their father, French media have reported. According to Le Canard Enchaine, they drew paychecks not for assignments but for two full-time jobs.
Marie and Charles Fillon did not respond to emails and telephone messages from the AP.
French politicians are allowed to hire family members as aides as long as they actually do the jobs for which they are paid. Fillon insists that Penelope’s work for him was genuine.
But France Televisions said it would screen extracts Thursday evening from an interview with Penelope Fillon in 2007, when her husband was prime minister, in which said she had never worked as his assistant. That appears to contradict the couple’s defense in recent days that she was legitimately employed.
Her lawyer, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, said Penelope’s words were being taken out of context.
Fillon and his wife were separately questioned by investigators for five hours on Monday and her lawyer said Penelope provided investigators with evidence that her work for her husband was genuine.
Prosecutors are working quickly, not wanting their work to overshadow the likely heated final weeks of the French campaign before the first-round polling on April 23. That gives them until mid-March to gather sufficient evidence to warrant either forwarding the dossier to an investigating magistrate or deciding to dismiss the case. Fillon is urging prosecutors to proceed quickly.
With Fillon weakened and the catastrophically unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande having abandoned hopes of running for a second five-year term, far-right leader Le Pen and independent maverick Emmanuel Macron are making hay.