French presidential candidate Francois Fillon not only paid his wife for an allegedly fake job as a parliamentary aide, but also employed two of the couple’s children for the same positions, a weekly newspaper is reporting. Altogether, the aide work brought Fillon’s family nearly US$1 million.
The Canard Enchaine newspaper yesterday reported that Francois Fillon’s wife earned more money over a longer period than reported previously. Penelope Fillon made 830,000 euros (US$895,080) over 15 years, not the 500,000 euros over eight years the weekly had reported last week.
Their daughter, Marie, and son, Charles, also were hired by Fillon as his parliamentary aides when he was a French senator in 2005 to 2007, earning 84,000 euros in total, the paper said, adding their actual jobs were “very evanescent.”
The Conservative hopeful, one of the top contenders in the upcoming French presidential election, on Tuesday night said he was the victim of a “very professional slander campaign.”
Francois Fillon has said he paid two of his children, “who were lawyers,” for “specific assignments” when he was a senator.
However, Marie and Charles were still in law school when they worked for their father, French news media reported.
According to Le Canard Enchaine, they drew paychecks not for “specific assignments,” but two full-time jobs.
Francois Fillon has also said he first officially employed his wife in 1997 and that she had worked for him without pay before then.
The weekly newspaper said Penelope Fillon first worked as her husband’s paid parliamentary aide in 1988 to 1990, earning the equivalent of 83,000 euros over three years.
The Canard also said Francois Fillon rehired her for one year after he quit as prime minister and went back to a seat in parliament in May 2012.
Francois Fillon has said she was on his payroll for six months during that period.
Last week, the newspaper reported Penelope Fillon also earned 100,000 euros as a literary consultant for a literary magazine, La Revue des Deux Mondes. The paper suggested that job also was a ruse, saying she wrote only two reviews in 2012 to 2013.
All figures cited by the Canard Enchaine were pre-tax salaries.
Francois Fillon and his wife are under a preliminary probe by the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office for suspicions of embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds after the Canard Enchaine first disclosed the so-called “Penelopegate” last week.
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