Fillon apologises to people in ‘Penelopegate’ fightback

France’s embattled conservative candidate Francois Fillon on Monday apologized for the "mistake" he made in hiring his wife as a parliamentary aide, though refusing to abandon his bid for the Elysée Palace.

The conservative nominee, whose candidacy has been derailed by a festering scandal involving his wife Penelope’s alleged “fake jobs”, told a news conference that he did not act illegally and would pursue his campaign for the presidency. But he apologized to the French people for employing his wife, saying it was a “mistake” he “deeply regretted”. Fillon said he had hired family members "out of trust", but recognized that such practices “create distrust nowadays”.

Once a hot favourite for the presidency, the champion of free-market policies has seen his campaign unravel in the two weeks since satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine reported his wife had been paid hundreds of thousands of euros from state coffers. 

Since the scandal broke, he and his wife have been interviewed by the fraud police, his office in parliament has been searched, and the inquiry has now been extended to two of his grown-up children.

Under French law it is not illegal for MPs to employ family members as assistants, provided they actually do the work. But the Canard claimed it could find no evidence that Mrs Fillon had been doing her job as parliamentary assistant for her husband and later another MP.