French Presidential Election: 'MPs, Who Supported Fillon, Are Still Behind Him'

The majority of the lawmakers representing The Republicans party in the French parliament maintain support for Francois Fillon as their presidential candidate despite a string of departures among members of his campaign amid the scandal around allegedly fake employment of Fillon's wife, party member Nicolas Dhuicq told Sputnik.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova — Earlier this week, representative for European and International Affairs within Fillon's team Bruno Le Maire announced the decision to leave the campaign. Fillon's spokesman Thierry Solere and political adviser Dominique Bussereau followed suit on Friday.

"The chances of having a new candidate, who would replace Fillon, for me is still rather low for two reasons: first of all, because of a March 17th deadline to present a required 300 signatures of elected officials and secondly, because most of the MPs, who supported Fillon, are still behind him. We have people who always tremble and shake under the artillery fire but most of troops are still faithful and loyal," Dhuicq told Sputnik on Friday.

Dhuicq reminded that before former President Jacques Chirac was elected in May 1995, "no one would bet a penny on him" by the beginning of the year 1995.

"Most of the parliament members were behind Chirac's opponents, besides, he was widely criticized by the media but people voted for him," Dhuicq said.

The parliamentarian sees a lot of similarities between a French media storm over the alleged "fake" jobs scandal and Chirac’s venting in the media in 1995. "There is a big discrepancy between what the media say and what common people feel and believe. I think Fillon still have for the moment between 18-20 percent of votes. The goal is to stay at 20 percent and win few more points. It is still possible," Dhuicq told Sputnik.

The lawmaker believes that the upcoming presidential elections will become France’s most unpredictable vote in decades.

"It is a very unpredictable situation. We may see that after so many attacks on Fillon, people are going to be very angry and feel that someone wants to deprive them of true presidential elections, to deprive them of a candidate, who has a true program, a candidate who is capable to reform France and give the country the true economic power and the true foreign policy. For me, I give 50 percent at most that Fillon would be replaced," Dhuicq said.

Fillon announced on Wednesday that he would not withdraw his candidature amid the growing controversy about his wife having been employed by him as a parliamentary assistant and paid, allegedly without actually working. Fillon denounced the investigation into the scandal as "a political assassination" because of its timing coinciding with the presidential campaign.