{"id":8927,"date":"2017-03-05T16:13:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-05T16:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/fillon-france-election-candidate-makes-fighting-speech-at-rally\/"},"modified":"2017-03-05T16:13:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-05T16:13:21","slug":"fillon-france-election-candidate-makes-fighting-speech-at-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/fillon-france-election-candidate-makes-fighting-speech-at-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Fillon France election: Candidate makes fighting speech at rally"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mr Fillon (C) with Penelope (L) and other senior supporters at the podium\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/3998\/production\/_94944741_038307317-1.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  AFP<figcaption>Image caption                                      Mrs Fillon accompanied her husband for the rally                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Beleaguered French presidential candidate Francois Fillon has urged supporters to fight on, in a speech to a mass rally in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>He told tens of thousands of supporters, many waving tricolour flags, that he would be cleared over allegations he paid his wife and children for work they did not do.<\/p>\n<p>The rally is seen as a crucial test of his popularity.<\/p>\n<p>Calls are growing for him to quit and senior allies have left his campaign.<\/p>\n<p>And just before the rally Christian Estrosi, a close ally of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, told BFM TV that senior Republicans would propose an alternative candidate in the coming hours.<\/p>\n<p>However, he said it was important &quot;not to humiliate&quot; Mr Fillon and allow him a &quot;dignified&quot; way out.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Fillon has seen his popularity slip in opinion polls.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  AFP<figcaption>Image caption                                      It was not clear whether the numbers at the rally will be enough to save Mr Fillon&#039;s campaign                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Republican party will hold crisis talks on the candidacy to Monday.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fillon payment inquiry: What you need to know<\/li>\n<li>I did do work - French candidate&#039;s wife<\/li>\n<li>Who are the French election candidates?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In a rousing speech to supporters in driving rain, Mr Fillon urged his supporters not to give up the fight and thanked them for their support.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to his opponents, he said: &quot;They think I&#039;m alone, they want me to be alone. Are we alone? Thank you for your presence.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>He said he would be exonerated when an impending criminal investigation got under way, and it would be the turn of his accusers to feel ashamed.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Media captionIs Mr Fillon finished in the presidential race?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But he admitted that he had made a mistake in employing his wife.<\/p>\n<p>Penelope Fillon accompanied him at the rally.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#039;s Hugh Schofield in Paris says that Mr Fillon&#039;s aim in arranging this rally was to be able to prove that he and his manifesto enjoy a solid base of support among right-wing voters - and he may well have succeeded. <\/p>\n<p>The idea of replacing him with another candidate now seems more complicated, our correspondent adds.<\/p>\n<p>A counter-demonstration, billed as a pot-banging rally against corruption by officials, was also being held in the Place de la Republique, AFP reported.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Fillon&#039;s wife said on Saturday that she did carry out parliamentary work for him.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview for French magazine Journal du Dimanche (in French), Penelope Fillon said everything was &quot;legal and declared&quot; and he would have paid someone else to do it if she had not.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>France&#039;s presidential election - everything you need to know<\/li>\n<li>Fillon clings on despite the odds<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The latest opinion polls suggest that Mr Fillon would be eliminated in the first round of presidential election voting on 23 April, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen and liberal Emmanuel Macron likely to progress to contest the election run-off on 7 May.<\/p>\n<p>A survey published in Journal du Dimanche (in French) suggests that 71% of those polled want Mr Fillon to step down. <\/p>\n<p>In another blow to Mr Fillon&#039;s campaign, his spokesman Thierry Solere became the latest member of the campaign team to announce his departure on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Fillon&#039;s woes have raised speculation that Alain Juppe, another former prime minister whom he overwhelmingly defeated in November&#039;s Republicans&#039; primary, could return to the race if he were to pull out.<\/p>\n<p><a rel='nofollow' href=http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-39171798 target=\"_blank\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright AFPImage caption Mrs Fillon accompanied her husband for the rally Beleaguered French presidential candidate Francois Fillon has urged supporters to fight on, in a speech to a mass<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}