French MPs Support Fillon Amid Scandal, Juppe's Refusal to Be 'Plan B'

Seventeen French lawmakers from right-wing The Republicans party and center Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) have extended their support to conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon engulfed in a scandal involving his wife's allegedly fake job, in a joint article published in Le Monde newspaper on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The lawmakers stressed in the article, entitled "For the honor of a man and the future of France," that for a week Fillon "has been nailed to pillory." The lawmakers denounced this "attempted execution" orchestrated by Fillon's opponents and expressed their "total support" to the presidential candidate.

Since November, Fillon, who used to serve a prime minister, had been regarded as a clear favorite of the second round of the French presidential election, but following recent allegations by the weekly Le Canard Echaine that his spouse Penelope received up to 900,000 euro ($970,000) for fictitious employments as his parliamentary assistant and contributor to a magazine, his popularity went down.

According to a survey by Elabe pollster for Les Echos, published on Wednesday, Fillon would get 19-20 percent of the votes in the first round of presidential election and would not make it to the second round, while independent candidate Emmanuel Macron is now credited with 22-23 percent versus 26-27 percent for National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

Fillon's downfall in ratings following "Penelopegate" led to some of his party fellows to suggest changing The Republicans' candidate for the election. On Wednesday, right lawmaker Philippe Gosselin called on mayor of Bordeaux Alain Juppe to "reflect on the possibility of taking over from Francois Fillon." Juppe, however, replied on Wednesday evening that he "will not be a Plan B" and that Fillon was still "our candidate."