PARIS: Emmanuel Macron orchestrated the downfall of his scandal-tainted conservative opponent, François Fillon, in last year’s election, according to Laurent Wauquiez, the new leader of France’s opposition conservative party, The Republicans.
“Behind the scenes he [Mr Macron] demolished him,” Mr Wauquiez claimed in remarks to students at Lyon business school. “I’m sure and certain that it was him [Mr Macron] who organised it. I think they [Macron’s team] largely contributed to setting up the demolition cell… I have no doubt that the whole thing was remote controlled.”
Mr Fillon, once the frontrunner in the election that brought President Macron to power, was undermined by allegations that he paid his British wife hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money for a job she never did as his his parliamentary assistant.