A former Prime Minister, given the presidential winner, accused of embezzlement of public funds. This catastrophic scenario had capsized the presidential campaign of the right before the presidential election of 2017. Three years later opens in Paris the trial of the Fillon couple before the criminal court, Monday, February 24.

Scheduled to last until March 11, the proceedings could however be immediately postponed to Wednesday, defense lawyers having asked for a delay because of the strike affecting the legal profession over their retirement.

François Fillon, 65, is being prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds, a charge for which he risks 10 years of imprisonment and a million euros fine.

Whoever was once the favorite of the race for the Élysée Palace will also have to answer for concealment of embezzlement of public funds, abuse of social goods and breach of the declarative obligations of the High Authority for the transparency of public life.

Penelope Fillon, to whom her husband is accused of having offered a fictitious job of parliamentary assistant, is for his part prosecuted for complicity and concealment of embezzlement of public funds and concealment of abuse of social goods.

The former deputy of François Fillon in the National Assembly, Marc Joulaud, is meanwhile on trial for embezzlement of public funds.

The affair broke out via Le Canard chained in the middle of the presidential campaign in January 2017, at a time when the polls promised victory to François Fillon.

Withdrawal from political life

Decided to maintain his candidacy despite his indictment, the champion of the Republicans finally failed in third place in the first round, with 20.01% of the vote.

The investigators estimated the sums received by Penelope Fillon, from the beginning of the 1980s to 2013, for jobs supposedly occupied in the National Assembly as parliamentary assistant and in The Revue des deux mondes as quality, at around one million euros. of "literary advisor".

Civil party in this case, the National Assembly will claim at the hearing the sum of 1,081,219.51 euros in damages, the lawyer for the institution told Reuters.

On January 30 on France 2, François Fillon had taken up the defense of his wife. "She was my first and most important collaborator," he said on the show "You have the floor," adding
that the employment of Penelope Fillon "was not fictitious" and that "the evidence will be provided during the trial".

This case also concerns jobs allocated to the couple's children, Charles and Marie, who were not prosecuted, however.

Retired from political life, François Fillon now works as a partner in the management and investment company Tikehau Capital.

With AFP

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