Scandal reshapes the French presidential election race

François Fillon gave an impressive press conference this week. But was it enough to get his campaign back on track?

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Has Franois Fillon saved his campaign?
(Image credit: This content is subject to copyright.)

Franois Fillon's impressive press conference this week might "save his faltering campaign to be the next president of France", says Harry de Quetteville in The Daily Telegraph. He "struck just the right note of wounded pride and regret for the way that #PenelopeGate had spiralled out of control". Whether the French will buy it is another matter: he failed to answer the main charge against him, which is that his wife and children have been paid nearly €900,000 since 1988 for doing very little.

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Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.