Prosecutors in France are investigating the Financial Affairs of François Fillon, the leading candidate in the upcoming French presidential election.
The investigation centers around €500,000 in payments to Penelope Fillon, his wife, over the course of 10 years when François was a member of parliament.
French MPs get €9,561 a month to hire aides. They are permitted to spend half of that allowance to hire family members. The family members are supposed to do some work, but no one can recall Penelope doing anything.
The rightwing French presidential candidate François Fillon is under pressure to explain the role of his British wife in his political operation after a newspaper alleged that she had been paid about €500,000 in eight years out of parliamentary funds.
Hiring family members is legal for French MPs and not against parliamentary rules as long as the person is genuinely employed. But the newspaper claimed it had been unable to track down anyone who had seen evidence of Penelope Fillon’s work.
The financial prosecutors’ office in Paris said in a statement on Wednesday it had opened an inquiry into the misuse of public funds.
The issue is all the more pressing for Fillon because, despite 35 years in politics including five years as prime minister, he is styling himself as an anti-system candidate, promoting himself as an honest, austere and “irreproachable” antidote to years of corruption scandals on the French right.
Citing pay slips, Le Canard Enchaîné claimed that Penelope Fillon, known as Penny, was paid from 1998 to 2002 from funds intended for parliamentary assistants.
From 2002 to 2007, when Fillon took up a cabinet post under then president Jacques Chirac, she became an assistant to Marc Joulaud, who carried out Fillon’s parliamentary duties in his place, earning €6,900-€7,900 a month.
A colleague of Joulaud’s told the paper: “ [I] never worked with [Penelope Fillon]. I have no information about this. I knew her only as a minister’s wife.”
The paper claimed that Penelope Fillon was again paid “for at least six months” in 2012 when Fillon, after serving as prime minister, left government following the defeat of rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy.
François Fillon told a television interviewer in November last year that his wife stayed at home in Sarthe while he worked as a politician in Paris. “I didn’t have much time to see the first four [of five children] grow up because I was an MP,” he told an M6 TV show about politicians’ family lives. “It was 24/7, so basically they were raised by their mother.”
But he also said, without detailing to which time period he was referring: “She was very involved in the campaigns, handing out flyers and attending meetings with me.”
Nice Job, If You Can Get It
The only work that Penelope did that anyone can come up with was handing out flyers, apparently for the benefit of Fillon, not taxpayers. For this, Penelope received €500,000.
It’s a nice “job” if you can get it. But there’s a catch: Only family members can apply.
Polls show François Fillon is the leading candidate in upcoming April-May 2017 French presidential election. This may change things substantially.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Did this have something to do with The Clinton Global Initiative?
This light weight only managed to steal 500,000 over 10 years… you have to steal a lot more than that **each year** if you want to work for the Clinton Foundation
Couldn’t he just had given a 20 minute speech to a financial for that?
And no transcript is needed either.
Or maybe it was a donation to a charity.
Oh wait.
Only democrats can do that.
Hypocrisy plus lying with a straight face is prerequisite for being a politician. Stealing is optional.
France is still paying everyone to search for a replacement to the word ‘kleptomania’ which mysteriously disappeared from the desk of a minister. To now they have only got as far as demonstrating what the word means to each other without actually being able to openly confirm that they have recovered its meaning.
Fillon (says he) wants to sack 500 000 civil servants also
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3975286/French-conservatives-voting-choose-presidential-nominee.html
Yeah, sack them all………except his wife!
Lol.
They are going to love that there with her being British. Unless they find some way to explain the payments Fillon will face a rebellion if he is elected and tries to implement cuts.
Who are we to judge? After all, these are the cream of humanity, God’s gift to us peons who are not capable of tending to our own needs properly. We need these people. The last thing we need in these dire times is to be criticizing our elites. What will we do if they in turn decide to abandon us to our OWN devices? The HORROR!
I am sure there are provisions prepared for if the public start getting ideas. The French are quite forward thinking in that sense – body armour, tasers, sniper deployment during protests etc. , they have a fair amount of experience of upsets. The place is more and more a police state.
A European politician stealing from the proletariat? Almost as shocking as a Chicago democrat stealing from US taxpayers
France was once a viable country, but its a failed state now. And they have 3rd world corruption to prove it.
PS — Brazil politicians stole a lot more than 500,000 (over 8 years). This guy is a light weight in the lying stealing politician category. France should be able to find someone to loot more taxpayer money faster… ask Lagarde from IMF before Soros or Clinton hires her first
PPS — Le Penn, the nutcase extraordinaire, remains the “closest thing to sane” candidate in an election of thieves, liars, crooks and socialists (somewhat redundant to mention both crooks and socialists).
Well, Let them eat cake or something like that.
So…every politician in France is now investigated for corruption or some other malfeasance. Next headline: X (fill in the name) is not investigated for corruption.
Should add that slipping out of the presidential palace for a little hankey-pankey is totally fine, in fact not doing so would be considered “unpresidential”.
“…she had been paid about €500,000 in eight years out of parliamentary funds.”
AKA tax payers hard earned money.
French – Strauss-Kahn, Lagarde, now Fillon.
French happy with all of them.
Words fail.
What are the political coming to?
Greedy f’ers.
Fillon is no Thatcher.
Audit the EU centre too and be prepared to be shocked on a massive scale.
Fillon has no regrets according to tv interview. Hamon promises 32 hrs working week with no loss of purchasing power. What can possibly go wrong.
One day it will be clear that France is insolvent and we will see the mother of all capital flights. Huge amounts are being saved in insolvent French banks. In a recent analysis Clif High speaks about a huge focus on savings in France. A sign that this is on peoples radar screen.
Fillon is a street walker compared to the best and the brightest thugs we have elected over the last ____ (fill in the blank) years.
“Polls show François Fillon is the leading candidate in upcoming April-May 2017 French presidential election.”
No, it is Marine Le Pen (27%) , François Fillon (26%), and Emmanuel macron (20%)
With this new scandal, I would not be surprised if the second tour would be between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron.
Just like Brexit won……then Trump……..then the Italian referendum was defeated……Marine LePen will win in France……..then Merkel is turned out in Germany.
We witness the collapse of western style socialism just like communism died.
Wonder how this is going to play out and how many more shocks are yet to come.
Francois Fillon has the Republicans as his parliamentary allies and perhaps the UDI. But, the two other real contenders, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen do not have such allies. What then will happen if Macron or Le Pen wins? Neither seems likely to get a parliamentary majority in the upcoming legislative elections.
If Macron wins, will he have to cut a deal with Les Republicains? How else can he get a parliamentary majority? The rump faction of socialists may be in no mood for fiscal reform if they soundly reject Manuel Valls and are beholden to the Left.
Also, how are the odds looking on Francois Bayrou running for president? Or might he ally with Macron?
Wonder how this is going to play out and how many more shocks are yet to come.
Francois Fillon has the Republicans as his parliamentary allies and perhaps the UDI. But, the two other real contenders, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen do not have such allies. What then will happen if Macron or Le Pen wins? Neither seems likely to get a parliamentary majority in the upcoming legislative elections.
If Macron wins, will he have to cut a deal with Les Republicains? How else can he get a parliamentary majority to work with? The socialists may be in no mood for fiscal reform if they soundly reject Manuel Valls.
Also, how are the odds looking on Francois Bayrou running for president? Or might he ally with Macron?
Francois Bayrou has no chance
Your other questions are good ones
Mish