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French ex-PM Francois Fillon and British wife handed prison sentences over fake jobs fraud

Former French premier François Fillon and his British-born wife Penelope were found guilty by a Paris court Monday on charges he orchestrated a fake job as parliamentary assistant for her.

Published: 29 June 2020 14:15 CEST

French ex-PM Francois Fillon and British wife handed prison sentences over fake jobs fraud

Former French Prime minister Francois Fillon and his wife Penelope Fillon arrive at the Paris' courthouse on June 29th, 2020 for the ruling on a trial for embezzlement in the context of an alleged job

François Fillon was sentenced to five years in prison, three of which were suspended, meaning he will spend two years behind bars.

He was also handed a €375,000 fine and banned from public office for 10 years.

His wife, Penelope Fillon, 64, was handed a three-year suspended sentence and the same fine. Her lawyer described the punishment as “extremely severe”.

The verdict was a long-awaited end to a political scandal that began when François Fillon, 66, was accused of creating a post that paid his wife over one million euros in public funds, a scandal that torpedoed his 2017 presidential bid.

The then-leader of the conservative party Les Républicains was widely tipped to win the presidency when the French Canard Enchaine newspaper reported that Penelope Fillon had been his parliamentary assistant for 15 years – except there was no evidence that she did any work.

In its verdict the court concluded that the payment Penelope Fillon had received “was not in proportion with her activities.”

“Her role was limited to simple transmission”, said the president of the court.

'Perfectly justified'

To defend herself from the accusations against her, Penelope Fillon told the court she had spent a lot of time sorting her husband's mail, attending public events near their rural manor and gathering information for his speeches.

But investigators seized on a 2016 newspaper interview in which she said: “Until now, I have never got involved in my husband's political life.”

At the height of the scandal in January 2017, François Fillon had told the media his wife's salary was “perfectly justified for the indispensable work she did for him.”

After the verdict his lawyer said the court's decision was “unjust” and announced his intention to appeal.

“There will be a new trial, which is necessary given the ludicrous conditions in which the investigation took place and the surprising conditions in which the investigation was carried out,” said Fillon's lawyer Antonin Lévy.

'Penelopegate'

“Penelopegate”, as the case was known, is one of a number of fraud cases against senior politicians opened in recent months and seen by some as a test of whether the French elite can be held accountable.

The revelations dealt a body blow to François Fillon's carefully honed image as a stern budgetary steward, despite his insistence that his wife had earned the €1.05 million she was paid from 1998 to 2013.

It later emerged Fillon had also used public money to pay two of his children a combined 117,000 euros for alleged sham work while he was a senator, before becoming premier in the government of then-president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The allegations that François Fillon had pilfered the public coffers for years pummelled his image as an upright fiscal hawk promising to right the country's finances – and loomed large in the “yellow vest” anti-government protests that rocked the country in 2018-2019.

François Fillon has repeatedly insisted that he was set up for “political assassination” by his rivals and was also the victim of a biased judiciary.

François Fillon’s lawyer said they would appeal the court's decision.

A third defendant, Marc Joulaud – who stood in for Fillon in parliament when he was a cabinet minister, and who also hired Penelope Fillon as an assistant – was also found guilty and handed a three year suspended sentence.

Member comments

Anonymous - 30 June 2020 at 10:19 CEST

A crazy sentence stemming from a politically motivated case.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.