A very French scandal

830-Fillons-1200 — Franois Fillon with his unusually well-paid assistant

"Allegations of financial impropriety... threaten to derail a bid for the [French] presidency," says the FT. Franois Fillon, the centre-right candidate, has "promised to restore moral standards to public life". He used his "reputation for probity" to beat both Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Jupp in the Republicans' primaries. However, his campaign has now been hit by claims that his wife, paid €500,000 over eight years as his assistant, received an unusually high salary while doing little apparent work. The allegations are particularly "inflammatory" since he plans "to slash civil service jobs".

Fillon's insistence that his wife "had in fact been secretly toiling as a high-powered aide" are "comical", says Nabila Ramdani on Independent.co.uk. After all, he has previously said "his wife had no other role beyond accompanying him to meetings and handing out leaflets". Nevertheless, it's too early to write him off because "this kind of scandal is entirely normal in France".

Indeed, French MPs "are given around €75,000 a year without any questions being asked, to add to allowances for everything from housing to stationery". No wonder their urge to change a cushy system soon dwindles. Many of Fillon's conservative predecessors have been tainted by allegations of sleaze. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is herself being investigated for her role in a party-wide EU financial scam.

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Fillon faces other problems too. "Concern is mounting among some of the candidate's allies that his perceived indifference to the day-to-day struggles of ordinary people is becoming an electoral risk," notes Helen Fouquet on Bloomberg.com. While his economic reforms "are the sort of medicine that many top executives and international institutions have been demanding for years", they "sound like a threat" to those struggling financially. Working people with annual incomes of less than €20,000 represent nearly a third of the electorate.