Monitoring Desk<\/p>\n
Alain Juppe, the leading candidate to replace under-fire French presidential hopeful Francois Fillon, says he will not run, despite pressure to do so.
\nMr Fillon has denied allegations that members of his family were paid taxpayers’ money for fictitious jobs.
\nHe has lost support within the centre-right party and in opinion polls ahead of the first round of voting in April.
\nMr Juppe, seen as his most likely replacement, attacked his rival’s “obstinacy” but said he would not run.
\nOpinion polls had shown that Mr Juppe would have progressed into the second round of the election. Mr Fillon is not projected to make it past the first round.
\nThey have been rumbling on for more than a month now – and the longer they have gone on, the more Mr Fillon has dug in (seemingly at the expense of his own chances of the presidency).
\nHe has fought allegations that his Welsh-born wife, Penelope, was paid for a number of years for work that she did not do as his parliamentary assistant.
\nHowever Mrs Fillon, who insists she did work for her husband, told French magazine Journal du Dimanche on Saturday that “everything was legal and declared”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monitoring Desk Alain Juppe, the leading candidate to replace under-fire French presidential hopeful Francois Fillon, says he will not run, despite pressure to do so. Mr Fillon has denied allegations that members of his family were paid taxpayers’ money for fictitious jobs. He has lost support within the centre-right party and in opinion polls ahead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n