Former French prime minister Alain Juppe has declined to step into the country’s presidential race to rescue his party’s chances should embattled candidate Francois Fillon withdraw.
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Juppe, 71, who lost in a party-political run-off to Fillon previous year, told reporters in Bordeaux that it was “too late” to enter the campaign, despite the flagging support for the scandal-hit Fillon.
Members of Juppe’s Republicans party had been calling for him to throw his hat into the ring after a financial scandal engulfed Fillon’s campaign and led to a significant drop in his poll ratings.
Before the scandal, Fillon had been favorite to return the right to power against a backdrop of high unemployment and sluggish growth under Socialist President Francois Hollande.
Mr Fillon is yet to react to the party’s backing.
Mr Juppe said: “What a waste”.
“I don’t want Fillon to give up”, said rally attendee Cornelly d’Aucy, 80.
Polls suggest that Macron, 39, would beat Le Pen in the decisive second round, but after Donald Trump’s rise in the U.S. and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, analysts caution against bold predictions.
Fillon’s British-born wife Penelope, who accompanied him at the rally, broke her silence earlier Sunday, telling Le Journal du Dimanche she had carried out “a lot of different tasks” for her husband during his lengthy career.
National Front leader and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron would go on to contest the second round on 26 and 25 percent respectively, according to the survey of 1,027 people.
“I will continue to tell my political family that this choice does not belong to them, because this choice is your choice, of your votes and through them your expectations”.
For weeks he has fought allegations that his wife, Penelope, was paid for a number of years for work that she did not do as his parliamentary assistant.
Luc said “he is the only one who can raise France up again”.
Fillon has been under fire since French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine reported on January 25 that he had paid his wife and two of his five children about one million euros (1.06 million USA dollars) for their jobs as parliamentary assistants.
Le Pen is facing her own legal investigations, but they don’t appear to be denting her popularity.
Mr Juppe, the likely beneficiary of any withdrawal by Mr Fillon, was due to speak to the media in Monday from Bordeaux, where he is mayor.
Some senior lawmakers in his Republicans party have called for Fillon to be replaced immediately, with polls now suggesting he would be eliminated in the first round of the election on April 23. Before the allegations surfaced, Fillon was the clear leader in opinion polls.
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But all eyes were on a previous favourite, center-right candidate Francois Fillon, who held a meeting to claim his “will to vanquish”, a day after he announced he was going to be charged for embezzlement, hours after his home was searched by the police and amid many defections in his campaign team.
