PARIS (AP) — Conservative leaders in France are rallying around Francois Fillon, the beleaguered presidential candidate, amid promised new revelations about the alleged illegitimacy of his wife’s taxpayer-paid job.
Broadcaster France Televisions said it would screen video extracts later Thursday from a 2007 interview with Penelope Fillon.
It said the then-prime minister’s wife said she had never worked as Fillon’s assistant.
That appears to contradict Fillon’s recent statements that she was legitimately employed as his parliamentary aide.
Allegations that Penelope Fillon was paid for work she didn’t do, first reported by French weekly Canard Enchaine and now being investigated by French prosecutors, have thrown Fillon’s campaign into disarray.
Seventeen senior conservatives, in a statement Thursday, declared “total” support for Fillon against what they called an “attempt to kill” his candidacy.
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