MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to Le Canard enchaine satirical newspaper, from 1998 to 2002, when Fillon was a lawmaker representing the Sarthe region, his wife was assigned as his parliamentary attache and later, when Fillon moved to work for the government, Penelope became an assistant for her husband's substitute deputy member of parliament Marc Joulaud, receiving an average monthly salary between 6,900 and 7,900 euros (up to $8,500).
In compliance with the rules, hiring family members is allowed for the lawmakers but provided it is a real, not a fictitious job.
The newspaper also claimed that between May 2, 2012 and December 2013, Penelope Fillon was a salaried employee with some 5,000 euros gross per month salary at prestigious cultural magazine Revue des deux mondes, owned by Fillon's friend Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere.
Sources working at the mentioned time in the French National Assembly, in Sarthe office and in the magazine could not confirm they ever heard or seen Fillon's wife, according to the weekly.
Reacting to the scandal, one of the Fillon's spokesmen Benoist Apparu said that "she has always worked in the shadows because it is not her style to put herself forward."
Fillon, presently viewed as a frontrunner of the presidential elections, married Wales-born Penelope in 1980 with the couple having now five children. Before The Republicans nominee presidential campaign started, his spouse, who quit her lawyer career many years ago, was believed to have no specific occupation.
