(BBC) French centre-right presidential candidate Francois Fillon has denounced a left-wing “institutional coup d’etat” as he faces mounting pressure to quit the presidential race.<\/p>\n
He has become mired in a scandal surrounding claims that his Welsh-born wife Penelope was paid large sums over a number of years for “fake jobs”.<\/p>\n
Far-right rival Marine Le Pen said he had lost voters’ confidence.<\/p>\n
And there was stinging criticism from his own side too.<\/p>\n
One Republican MP, Georges Fenech, said that Mr Fillon’s victory in the party’s primaries in November had become “obsolete”. He said the affair was not just a judicial matter but an ethical and moral one, and an urgent decision had to be made.<\/p>\n
Recently the favourite to win the presidency in elections in April and May, he has now slipped behind Ms Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron. Mr Fillon said he would fight the accusations “to the end” on Wednesday but commentators suggested his fate was slipping out of his hands.<\/p>\n
Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon ridiculed the idea of a left-wing coup, saying it was “a bit curious to search for plots where there aren’t any”.<\/p>\n
Francois Fillon’s chances of political survival are hanging on a thread, and if you want to know why just listen to French talk radio.<\/p>\n
This morning on RMC when broadcaster Jean-Jacques Bourdin took calls about Penelopegate, the mood was angry.<\/p>\n
Caller after caller pointed up the vast difference in their own salary, and the money – up to \u20ac10,000 ($10,800; \u00a38,540) a month – which Penelope Fillon took as her husband’s parliamentary assistant. “And I actually work!” said one.<\/p>\n
And in the Republican Party, what was unthinkable a few days ago is now outwardly mooted: that Francois Fillon may need to step down and be replaced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(BBC) French centre-right presidential candidate Francois Fillon has denounced a left-wing “institutional coup d’etat” as he faces mounting pressure to quit the presidential race. He has become mired in a scandal surrounding claims that his Welsh-born wife Penelope was paid large sums over a number of years for “fake jobs”. Far-right rival Marine Le Pen said he had lost voters’… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":558,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}