French President Emmanuel Macron has called for an investigation into claims that prosecutors were pressured to file fraud charges against former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, his main right-wing rival in France's 2017 presidential race.
Fillon, 66, was favorite to win the elections until a newspaper report claimed he had created a fake parliamentary assistant job for his wife for which she was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds.
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Fillon, who is currently on trial, denies the claims. A ruling in the case is expected to come down on June 29. Prosecutors have asked the court to give Fillon a five-year sentence, with three years suspended, as well as a three-year suspended jail term for his wife.
Throughout the proceedings, the former French PM maintained that he was the victim of "political assassination."
The scandal, one of the most sensational stories in French politics, took center stage again last week when Le Point magazine reported that Eliane Houlette, who headed the French prosecution's Financial Crimes Department from 2014 to 2019, said she was under "enormous pressure" and "very tight control" by then-Paris Attorney General Catherine Champrenault to investigated and charge Fillon.
According to France24, speaking to a parliamentary committee on the independence of the judiciary on June 10, Houlette suggested that Champrenault made her "speed up the inquiry" against Fillon, who was running in that year's presidential race.
He was charged merely six weeks after the fraud allegations emerged – an unusually swift move in a country where legal inquiries can take years, AFP noted.
Champrenault denied exercising any undue pressure on Houlette in the case. But the uproar was enough for Macron's office to say Friday that the president had asked France's judicial watchdog, the Supreme Judiciary Council, to investigate the claims.
"These statements, which have provoked a significant outcry, have been interpreted as showing that pressure could have been put on the judiciary during a critical moment in our democratic process," the Elysee Palace said in a statement.
"It is, therefore, essential to remove all doubt on the independence and impartiality of the justice system in this matter," it said.
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Fillon's party called the information "grave."
French MP Meyer Habib told Israel Hayom, "Fillon certainly had the greatest potential in the [2017] race and the French Left succeeded in bringing down the right-wing candidate in weeks. Some people see similarities between this case and what is happening in other countries around the world."
