The bomb exploded in the middle of the 2017 presidential campaign, when François Fillon was the candidate of the right and the center.
Almost eight years after the revelations of Chained Duck on the affair of the fictitious jobs of his wife Penelope Fillon, the former Prime Minister proposed to the National Assembly a reimbursement protocol of nearly 679,989 euros, with payments spread over ten years, reveals BFMTV.
An amount which corresponds to the damages that the Fillon couple was ordered to pay “jointly” with the former deputy Marc Joulaud in the lower house of Parliament. This proposal would have been made a few months ago, the former Prime Minister's lawyer, Me Antonin Lévy, told Franceinfo.
Sanctions to be confirmed
But it was revealed shortly before a key moment for Mr. Fillon: last April, the Court of Cassation definitively confirmed his guilt for embezzlement of public funds, but not his sentence. The four years in prison, including one year under an electronic bracelet, accompanied by 10 years of ineligibility and a heavy fine which he had received were not sufficiently justified by the Court of Appeal, according to the Court of Cassation.
A new hearing before the Court of Appeal, to rule on this sentence and definitively close the case, is imminent: it will take place on November 25.
As a reminder, in an article from January 25, 2017, The Chained Duck revealed that Penelope Fillon had been handsomely paid for jobs as parliamentary attaché to her husband and his deputy, Marc Joulaud, from 1998 to 2007 and then in 2012, but that proof of this work was lacking.
This was followed by an investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office for embezzlement of public funds, misuse of corporate assets and receiving stolen property, then a conviction at first instance in 2020, reduced on appeal in 2022.
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