Fillon affair

The Fillon affair (also the Penelope Fillon affair or Penelopegate) is a political-financial scandal involving allegations that family members of French politician François Fillon were given paid jobs that involved no actual work. The case arose during the campaign for the 2017 French presidential election in which Fillon, the candidate of the Republicans after winning the primary of the right and centre, was strongly favoured to win.

The affair began when the satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné alleged in its edition of 25 January 2017 that Penelope Fillon, wife of François Fillon, received €500,000 as a parliamentary assistant to her husband and his substitute Marc Joulaud between 1998 and 2007 and in 2012. It also claimed that she was paid €100,000 as a literary adviser to the Revue des deux Mondes. The absence of evidence of work by Penelope Fillon and her distance from political life, however, led the newspaper to suspect that these jobs were fictitious. The same day, the national financial prosecutor (parquet national financier, or PNF) opened a preliminary investigation into embezzlement and misuse of public funds.

On 1 February, Le Canard enchaîné published a new article in which it claimed that, including the years 1988 to 1990 and 2013, the total wages Penelope Fillon collected as a parliamentary assistant were in fact €813,440. In addition, the weekly also revealed that two of the couple's children, Charles and Marie Fillon, received €84,000 while employed from 2005 to 2007 as assistants to their father, then a Senator.

On 17 February, contrary to his previous promise that he would drop his bid if placed under formal investigation, François Fillon announced he would maintain his candidacy regardless. On 14 March, he was placed under formal investigation for misuse of public funds, embezzlement, and failure to comply with transparency requirements. The investigation was subsequently extended to "aggravated fraud, forgery, falsification of records" and influence-peddling on 16 March, as investigators raised concerns that seized documents were forged to provide evidence of tangible work by Penelope Fillon.

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