It’s hard not to feel for François Fillon, the French presidential hopeful whose career is now imploding. He looked destined for the Élysée Palace — until Le Canard Enchainé, the French equivalent of Private Eye, broke the story about him paying his British wife too much to pretend to be his assistant. Sensible, small c conservative, Catholic France had fallen for him, and he was regarded as the perfect moderate alternative to Marine Le Pen. It’s true he had been called ‘Thatcherite’, which is quite poisonous in France, but he could have survived that.
With this scandal, which seems small beer by French standards, the wolves are out to get him. Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president and one of the men he beat to be presidential nominee for Les Republicains, is said to be ‘glowing with pleasure’ at his demise. And his supposed allies are now saying he should make way for another candidate — someone like Alain Juppé or perhaps Francois Baroin.
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