PARIS, June 29 — A Paris court today sentenced French former prime minister Francois Fillon to five years in prison, three suspended, for orchestrating a fake job for his wife in a scandal that cost him his shot at the presidency in 2017. Fillon’s wife Penelope was given a suspended three-year...
Former French Prime minister Francois Fillon and his wife Penelope Fillon arrive at the Paris’ courthouse on June 29, 2020 for the ruling on a trial for embezzlement in the context of an alleged job fraud. — AFP pic
The case was widely seen as a test of whether French politicians would now be held to account after decades of getting off lightly on charges of nepotism or financial misconduct.Presiding judge Nathalie Gavarino said Fillon, 66, pursued “personal enrichment” over the common good and “contributed to an erosion of public trust” in elected leaders.
Facing two years behind bars, Fillon was allowed to leave the courthouse a free man, for now, after the couple’s lawyers said they would appeal.The couple did not make any statement to dozens of journalists gathered as they left the courthouse.The allegations that Fillon pilfered public coffers for years pummelled his image as an upright fiscal hawk promising to right the country’s finances — and loomed large in the “yellow vest” anti-government protests that rocked the country in 2018-2019.
The court today convicted the couple on this charge too, and for Penelope’s receipt of €135,000 for largely fictitious “consulting work” for the millionaire owner of a literary magazine. If the ruling is upheld, she will have to abandon the local council seat she was re-elected to last March in the northern town of Solesmes.Fillon’s lawyers sought to have the trial restarted after the former head of the Financial Prosecutor’s Office , Eliane Houlette, told lawmakers this month she had met with “pressure” to bring charges quickly against the ex-premier.
Fillon met his Welsh-born wife while she was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, and the couple soon married and moved to an imposing country estate near Le Mans where they raised their five children.
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