PARIS: French prosecutors’ decision to launch a full judicial inquiry into claims that presidential candidate Francois Fillon paid his family for fake jobs leaves him facing a fraught two months before elections, commentators said on Saturday.
Fillon, who was previously leading the race as the right wing standard-bearer, will be investigated by three magistrates over allegations of embezzling public funds and misappropriating corporate assets, prosecutors said on Friday.
The 62-year-old former prime minister had until now been subject to a preliminary probe. An editorial in Le Parisien newspaper on Saturday said the move to a full investigation represented a “surge in the pressure” on Fillon.
The left-wing Liberation said he now faced a “perilous period, both legally and politically”.
Fillon has not been charged at this point, but investigating magistrates have the power to bring charges or can choose to drop the case.
With the first round of the election taking place on April 23, the timing of the magistrates’ decision could have a significant bearing on the outcome.
Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen has been bolstered by the scandal and has overtaken Fillon in the polls over the past month.
But the latest surveys before the prosecutors’ decision showed that Fillon had regained ground and was neck-and-neck with 39-year-old centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron in second place.
Fillon did not refer to the new legal move in a speech near Paris late on Friday, but complained he had been “relentlessly attacked” during the campaign.
He denies wrongdoing but has said he would drop out of the race if he is charged, although he later appeared to backtrack and said he would put his fate in the hands of voters.
The devout Catholic won the conservative nomination by campaigning as a “clean” candidate unsullied by the scandals of his rivals.
But since January he has been fighting claims by Le Canard Enchaine newspaper that he had used allowances to pay his British-born wife Penelope at least 680,000 euros (Dh2.64 million) over some 15 years as a parliamentary aide.
Although French lawmakers are allowed to employ family members, it is unclear what work Penelope did and she did not have a pass to the National Assembly building.
Lawyers for the couple said they were confident the investigators would find them “innocent, at last”.
The Canard Enchaine has alleged Fillon’s wife was also paid tens of thousands of euros by a literary review, the Revue des Deux Mondes, owned by her husband’s billionaire friend, Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere.
Magistrates will investigate whether this amounts to misappropriation of corporate assets.
The paper also reported that two of Fillon’s children were paid as parliamentary advisers for brief periods.
The Fillons have argued that Penelope was legitimately employed and the couple’s lawyers say they have provided proof of the work she did.
But after the allegations emerged, French television broadcast a 2007 interview in which Penelope told a British journalist she had never been her husband’s assistant.
Fillon has dismissed the claims as politically motivated but has acknowledged that his presidential bid had become “difficult”, with hecklers often targeting him at campaign stops.
Macron, a former economy minister, has moved rapidly from outsider to a front-runner and got a potential boost this week when veteran centrist Francois Bayrou formed an alliance with him.
But Macron, who has never won elected office, faces criticism from rivals that his programme is too vague.
While Le Pen is forecast to win the most votes in the first round, polls currently show she would be beaten by either Fillon or Macron in the all-important runoff on May 7.
The 48-year-old National Front leader is facing her own expenses scandal.
Her personal assistant was charged this week over allegations she was unlawfully paid from funds that Le Pen receives from the European Parliament, where she has a seat.
Le Pen on Friday refused to attend questioning by anti-corruption investigators, saying she would only speak to them after the election.
The presidential race remains highly uncertain with the unstable international picture — from Donald Trump and Brexit to the surge of right wing nationalism in countries such as the Netherlands — is mirrored by an anti-establishment mood in France.
