- Title: Fillon "won't give up" as pressure mounts over probe
- Date: 3rd March 2017
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MARCH 2, 2017) (REUTERS) FRONT PAGES OF FRENCH NEWSPAPERS SHOWING FILLON VARIOUS OF FRENCH NEWSPAPER, LE MONDE, WITH FRONT PAGE HEADLINE READING (French): "FILLON DENOUNCES A 'POLITICAL ASSASSINATION'"
- Embargoed: 17th March 2017 10:18
- Keywords: Fillon France Nimes presidential election campaign probe investigation
- Location: PARIS & NIMES, FRANCE / INTERNET
- City: PARIS & NIMES, FRANCE / INTERNET
- Country: France
- Topics: Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA00266EMWJR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Embattled French presidential candidate, Francois Fillon, has vowed to fight on despite numerous high-profile defections from his campaign and lukewarm polling evidence which sees him outstripped by centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right's Le Pen in the April/May poll.
Fillon announced on Wednesday (March 1) that he would stay in the race despite being called before judges later in the month to be placed under formal investigation in a probe into whether he paid his wife public money for a job for which she did very little work.
Holding a rally in the southern city of Nimes on Thursday, he said his supporters were being robbed of their election.
"Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, the shredder, the (news) scoop machine, the rumour mill has motored on. But I'm telling you that I have no intention on giving up," he said.
Fillon has accused the judiciary and the media of bias, and his supporters are planning a large demonstration in front of the Eiffel Tower on Sunday at which he is expected to speak.
His opponents have criticised his attack on judges with Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon saying on Friday that he had been shocked by the tone, accusing Fillon of undermining the country's institutions.
"He was the one who decided to make the public and presidential debate turn hysterically around his own situation by pointing the finger at the judges. Why am I saying he's unfit today? Because, how could he, tomorrow, as president of the Republic, be the guarantor of the independence of the judiciary, when he's building his presidential campaign on denouncing judges?" Hamon told BFMTV.
Jurist Antoine Garapon told France Inter radio on Thursday that Fillon appeared to expect special treatment, saying mistrust of the legal process was a systemic problem in France.
"There is a sort of French anti-legalism, of hating judges, notably from the political class, which hides a disdain for the law. And I believe that it is a cultural characteristic of our country and of our institutions, which is not good," he said.
An Odoxa poll published on Friday saw Fillon lagging behind his main rivals.
The 62-year-old was projected to take 19 percent of the first-round vote with Le Pen on 25.5 percent and Macron on 27 percent -- the first time the centrist has led the field since the final line up of candidates became clear.
Some voters in Paris on Thursday (March 2) said that Fillon has discredited himself by pitching himself as the honest candidate.
"When you've set yourself up as someone who gives lessons about integrity and honesty, he should resign," left-leaning Parisian Benoit Roland said.
"I think it's an ugly affair, and I am truly saddened because I was very enthusiastic at the end of the primaries. But I will vote for his programme, if it is not for the man, it will be for his programme, because I do not want to be governed either by Marine Le Pen or by the Socialists," The Republicans supporter Lucille Morelle said.
Other right-wing voters could start to get anxious at Fillon's underwhelming performance in the polls, the Director-General of the IFOP polling institute, Frederic Dabi, told Reuters, though a hardcore of his backers would withstand all attacks.
"Francois Fillon is not in a position to reach the second round, whereas the day after the primary, we were talking about an election that could not be lost for him. That makes things difficult to swallow if I may say so and a situation where the right is very fearful of seeing their candidate, their party, eliminated from the second round of the presidential election," he said on Thursday.
"What has changed in comparison to the time before the news conference (on March 1) is the defection of political figures from the right -- those close to (Fillon's former foreign policy spokesman) Bruno Le Maire and Bruno Le Maire, (centre-right party) the UDI. It could split part of the electorate of the right to see important political figures on the right pulling out of Francois Fillon's political campaign. So will it carry on? For now, yes," Dabi added.
The election takes place over two rounds with the two best-placed candidates from the April 23 vote going through to the May 7 run-off.
The Odoxa poll also indicated that Alain Juppe -- who Fillon beat in the conservatives' primary in November -- would win 26.5 percent of the vote in the first round if he replaced Fillon as the candidate.
A source in Juppe's entourage said on Friday that the 71-year-old was "ready to take part in the search for a solution". - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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