Conservative Francois Fillon promised on Wednesday to fight "to the end" in France's presidential election despite a deepening investigation into a financial scandal, but his campaign suffered a new blow as a top aide resigned. The former prime minister revealed that investigating magistrates had summoned him to appear before them on March 15 to be placed under formal investigation over allegations that he paid his wife hundreds of thousands of euros of public money to do very little work.
In a defiant speech at his party headquarters, he repeated his denials of wrongdoing, complained of judicial and media bias amounting to a "political assassination", and appealed directly to the French people for their support. "It's not just me being assassinated. It's the presidential election," he said, flanked by senior party members, after a morning of speculation he was about to quit the race. "I put myself before the French people because it is their suffrage, and not a biased procedure, that should decide who should be the president of the republic of France.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.