The French rightwing presidential candidate François Fillon has apologised for hiring his wife as a parliamentary assistant, admitting he made an “error” but refusing to quit the race. The Guardian reports.
Fillon, once seen as a frontrunner to face the far-right Front National’s Marine Le Pen in the final round of the presidential election in May, has seen his ratings drop after anti-fraud prosecutors opened an investigation into allegations that he paid his wife and children large amounts of taxpayers’ money for fake parliamentary assistant jobs.
At a press conference on Monday, he refused to stand down as candidate, insisting the jobs he gave his family were real and justified and that he had done nothing illegal. But he nonetheless offered his apologies to the French people.
He said he had hired his family members because he trusted them, but he recognised that such practices, while legal and commonplace years ago, “create distrust nowadays”.
