Nearly 70% want French presidential hopeful Fillon out of election race – poll

‘Sixty-eight percent of respondents want French presidential hopeful François Fillon to withdraw from the election, a new poll shows. Fillon’s popularity plunged following allegations that his wife was paid hundreds of thousands of euros for a fake job.
The blow to Fillon’s reputation was measured by an Ifop poll conducted for Le Journal du Dimanche.
Only 23 percent of those who took part in the poll consider the conservative candidate, who was until recently poised to become France’s next president, “honest,” compared with 77 percent who think he is not.
“Francois Fillon is clearly paying the price for the affair,” Frédéric Dabi, the deputy general manager of Ifop, said on Saturday, referring to the scandal – dubbed Penelopegate – which revolves around claims that his British wife, Penelope Fillon, was paid colossal sums of public money for doing a fake job as a parliamentary aid.’
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