- French politician Francois Fillon (Francois Fillon) will try to whitewash himself.
- He was allegedly guilty of corruption.
- He was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud.
Former French presidential candidate François Fillon returned to court on Monday to try to clear his reputation in a corruption scandal that led to his downfall and put an end to Emmanuel Macron’s rise .
After five years of turbulent socialist rule under Francois Hollande, the conservative former prime minister was heatedly discussed in 2017 to retake the right wing of the Elysee Palace.
Read | Fillon of France apologizes for the “mistake” in hiring his wife
However, three months before the vote, Fillon’s campaign was revealed that his wife Penelope received 613,000 Euros (700,000 U.S. dollars) in 15 years because of her husband and deputy. Of parliamentary assistants are suspected of false work.
Fillon once campaigned as a model of integrity. After being accused of embezzling public funds, he lost in the first round of elections.
In June 2020, the court ruled that Penelope’s work was either “fictitious or greatly exaggerated” and sentenced 67-year-old Franois Fillon to two years’ imprisonment for fraud. He is forbidden to hold an elected public office for 10 years.
appeal
- His 66-year-old Welsh-born wife was sentenced to probation.
- The couple and Fillon’s former deputy Mark Jouraud were also ordered to repay more than 1 million euros to the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament.
- Before the results of the couple’s appeal, Fillon was allowed to be released, and the appeal will begin on Monday.
His last appearance in court was a year when his former boss, former President Nicolas Sarkozy (Nicolas Sarkozy) was sentenced to two imprisonment in two separate trials, one for corruption and the other for illegal campaign funding.
Sarkozy was the first French president to be sentenced to prison after the war, and he has appealed the two rulings.
Fillon admitted that he “must be mistaken,” but denied trying to deceive taxpayers by using the funds available to members of Congress to enrich his family by parliamentary assistants.
He insisted that Penelope did real work for her salary, including sorting out his mail and proofreading his speech.
As a devout Catholic, after running for “Mr. Cleaner”, he witnessed Sarkozy’s return attempt to win the Republican nomination in 2016.
The defeat of his presidential campaign plunged his party into chaos.
New election
Since there were no left-wing supporters of their own in the campaign, most conservatives turned their support to the centrist upstart Macron, who poached several senior Republicans during his rise to power.
Fillon filed an appeal in the form of a full retrial, just as the country began to prepare for the new elections in April.
Two of the five candidates vying for the Republican Party’s nomination promised that, if elected, they would drastically reduce the number of civil servants—an echo of one of Fillon’s major promises.
One of the contenders, Congressman Eric Ciotti, announced in a televised debate last week:
If he (Fillon) is elected, I don’t think France will be relegated to the second division among nations.
“Penelope Gate” is one of France’s biggest political scandals in decades.
Over the past few weeks, the investigative newspaper Canard Enchaine has filed allegations.
In addition to Penelope’s alleged false parliamentary work, the Fillon couple were also charged, claiming that two of their five children were engaged in false work in the Senate, and Penelope was in a magazine owned by a friend of Fillon. False work.
Last week, there was news that Francois Fillon was also under investigation for using public funds to pay the author of his speech to help him write the book.
Fillon’s lawyer Antonin Levy accused the anti-fraud prosecutor of pursuing his client.
Fillon, who has withdrawn from politics, established a business consulting company. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Russian state oil company Zarubezhneft.
Don’t miss a story. Choose from our newsletter Send the news you want directly to your inbox.
