France's far-right ups attacks on Fillon

France's far-right National Front called on scandal-hit presidential hopeful Francois Fillon to withdraw his candidacy yesterday as they sharpened attacks on the conservative following damaging new television revelations.

"I wish Francois Fillon would take responsibility and withdraw from this presidential election... so we can get back to a debate about the real issues," deputy FN leader Florian Philippot told RTL radio on Friday.

On Thursday, the France 2 channel aired newly discovered footage of Fillon's wife Penelope, who was reportedly paid more than 800,000 euros ($860,000) as a parliamentary aide amid suspicions she never worked.

In the interview filmed in 2007, Penelope can be heard talking about how her children have only ever known her as a mother and saying "I've never been actually his (Fillon's) assistant."

The 62-year-old Fillon, candidate for the rightwing Republicans party and formerly the frontrunner ahead of April's first round of the presidential election, is determined to try to ride out the scandal which he has called a "plot" against French democracy.

Marine Le Pen, who leads the anti-establishment and anti-immigration FN, would win the first round if it were held today, according to the latest polls, but would lose in the second round on May 7.

Le Pen is seeking to benefit from the tarnishing of ex-prime minister Fillon, who previously had a sleaze-free reputation and who takes a hard line on immigration and Islam.

"The bond of trust has been broken," Le Pen said on Wednesday. "It's up to him to draw the conclusions or his political family."

But Le Pen has her own expenses scandal after she refused this week to meet a deadline to repay nearly 300,000 euros which the European Parliament budget says was incorrectly used to pay a long-time aide. The anti-EU leader is an MEP.

Several senior party members also face trial in France over alleged misuse of public money after an investigation into allegedly fraudulent funding of their parliamentary election campaign in 2012.

Le Pen is convinced that Donald Trump's victory in the United States and Brexit in Britain mean the time has come for her own anti-elite, anti-immigration and nationalist leadership in France.

She has fought to try to rid her party of its image of racism and anti-Semitism, while proposing to scrap the euro and withdraw France from the European Union.

The violent ejection of a journalist from one of her events this week threatened to draw attention to the thuggish, intolerant underbelly of the party that Le Pen has fought hard to overcome.

One of the beneficiaries of the Fillon scandal could be Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old independent centrist who was seen advancing to the second round to face Le Pen in a poll this week.

The surprise winner of the Socialist nomination, the leftwing Benoit Hamon, is also gaining the polls and is eyeing gains from Fillon's troubles.

Fillon, who was premier under former president Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007-2012, shows no sign of planning to step aside to make way for another candidate from his Republicans party.

On Thursday afternoon, he used a rally in the northeastern town of Charleville-Mezieres to lash out at the left, which he accuses of being behind the revelations.

"They are not looking to see justice done but to take me down and, beyond me, take down the right and steal its vote," he said.

His wife's lawyer, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, also insisted that Penelope's remarks aired on Thursday evening had been "taken out of context".

Fillon's fate will depend on his ability to rally his party's lawmakers behind him amid signs of anxiety ahead of parliamentary elections in June which will follow the presidential vote.

A small minority of lawmakers have already broken ranks and criticised him publicly, but he appears to be retaining support -- for now -- partly because of the difficulty of drafting in a last-minute replacement.

"We give Francois Fillon our complete support because his commitment to France is vital," a group of senior Republicans figures wrote in the rightwing Le Figaro daily on Thursday.

Less than 80 days before voting, the most popular candidate among voters to replace Fillon would be Alain Juppe, a 71-year-old ex-prime minister who was resoundingly beaten by Fillon in a primary contest last November.

Juppe has so far ruled himself out.