French Presidential Election: Poll Shows 71% of Voters Want Fillon to Quit Race

More than two thirds of French voters want The Republicans' (LR) candidate Francois Fillon to withdraw from the ongoing presidential race amid the scandal around his wife's employment, according to a poll.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the survey, carried out by Ifop for Journal du Dimanche newspaper, 71 percent of people questioned want Fillon to step down as compared to 65 percent in an identical poll, conducted in mid-February.

On Friday, an Odoxa poll showed that former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe, who lost to Fillon in the second round of the LR primaries in November 2016, would come ahead of right-wing Marine Le Pen and independent Emmanuel Macron if the party dropped its nominee Francois Fillon in his favor. Over 26 percent of respondents would back Juppe in the first round of the upcoming election, leaving Le Pen with 24 percent and Macron with 25 percent.

Jacques Myard, a member of the French National Assembly from The Republicans (LR) party told Sputnik that the results of the polls could be a manipulation.

On Wednesday, Fillon said at a press conference that he would not withdraw his candidacy and denounced the investigation into his wife allegedly having been employed as his parliamentary assistant and paid without actually doing the job as "a political assassination." LR candidate is set to appear before the investigative magistrate on March 15.

The first round of the French presidential elections is scheduled for April 23, with the run-off slated for May 7.