After the procedural questions, place at the bottom of the case. On the second day of the trial of the Fillon couple, in which the former Prime Minister is suspected of fictitious jobs for having paid his wife, the two spouses spoke at length at the bar. Starting with Penelope Fillon, who was questioned for more than an hour about the reality of her work with her husband, a sequence which left a feeling of unease, the prosecutor even going so far as to express her compassion.
A chopped tone, a volume that is sometimes barely audible
In a French with a British accent, Penelope Fillon, straight at the helm in her black suit jacket, wades, and struggles to describe what she has done or produced when it comes to answering questions about contracts signed with her husband in the 1980s. Ditto for studies with nebulous titles for which she was paid, such as "Aménagement du bocage sabolien" or "Secretarial organization". "Small reports of 50-60 pages", she advances in a chopped tone and at a volume sometimes barely audible. But none have ever been found. On her role of parliamentary attaché, she explains that she did "work like mail and small local press reviews".
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When the judge mentions her salary three times higher than other collaborators, or when he emphasizes that she was taking vacations without declaring them and that she was receiving paid vacation pay, an answer reasons each time in the mouth of Penelope Fillon: "It was my husband who managed this".
Answers that border on François Fillon's arrogance
Much more comfortable at the helm, François Fillon returns all the balls thrown by the prosecution with two arguments. When he does not claim that his actions were "in accordance with the rules of the National Assembly", he invokes the separation of powers, and that the justice should not be involved. Responses that sometimes border on arrogance, such as when asked about the fact that his wife does not appear on his team’s trombinoscope: "What does it matter, Sarthois do not know what it is. The trombinoscope , it's a Parisian thing. "