French Expand Probe Into Presidential Candidate Fillon

>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.

>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.

>Piling on the pressure on Fillon, 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 as his parliamentary aide.

>Fillon and his wife were separately questioned by investigators for five hours on Monday and the Canard Enchaine reported Wednesday that she made 830,000 euros ($900,000) over 15 years.

>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.

>Senior conservatives rallied around Fillon on Thursday, declaring their "total" support and denouncing what they called an "attempt to kill" his candidacy.

>"They're throwing to the wolves a man, his wife, his children, his colleagues, without waiting for their arguments or listening to their defense," 17 conservatives, including former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said in a tribune in the Le Figaro newspaper.

This almost guarantees a win for LePen.

more coverage from france:
http://www.thelocal.fr/20170202/so-what-happens-to-the-french-election-race-if-franois-fillon-falls

>>107452

You clearly didn't read the article. Le Pen has nowhere near the support nationwide to not be crushed if she makes it to the second round. France pretty clearly wants the Socialists out this cycle for a variety of reasons, but there's a legit substitute who will obviously take the helm of Les Republicains even though he says he won't (because if he said he will he'd be seen as opportunist -- not very French-like), plus there's another mainstream qualified centre-right party candidate who's young and handsome and will eat the heart out of Socialists if he gets to the end. Even if it comes to Hamon vs. Le Pen it'll be a clear victory, if perhaps uncomfortably close this time now since Le Pen's seriously turned down her rhetoric this past years.

>>107452
>This almost guarantees a win for LePen.

I'd love to know what makes you think that.