French rightwing candidate Francois Fillon battled to save his scandal-hit presidential bid on Wednesday as disastrous After a week of damaging revelations that the 62-year-old former prime minister employed his family members in parliament, a new poll Wednesday showed him crashing out of the election in April. Fillon has been favourite to be France’s next leader since November when he clinched the nomination for the Republicans party, but the survey suggested for the first time he would be defeated in the first round of the election. The main beneficiary from his woes appears to be Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old independent centrist who was seen advancing to the second round in May to face far-right leader Marine Le Pen. On Wednesday afternoon Fillon defiantly insisted he would not abandon his presidential bid. “I will be candidate at the presidential election,” he said. ”When you decide to be a presidential candidate, you can’t complain afterwards about the severity of the attacks… I will contest them to the end. Earlier in the day he lashed out at the Socialist government for meddling in his plans to become president. “We know where this affair comes from, it comes from the government, it comes from the left,” Fillon told Republicans lawmakers in a closed-door meeting on… Read full this story
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