Penelopegate: François Fillon sentenced on appeal to 4 years suspended prison sentence, 375,000 euros fine and 5 years of ineligibility

"Fillon, give back the money!" The slogan that punctuated the 2017 presidential campaign should become a little more of a reality. The former LR candidate, however, escapes the prison sentence he was sentenced to at first instance and on appeal. Eight years after the revelations about his wife Penelope's fictitious jobs that ruined his race for the Élysée , François Fillon was sentenced by the Paris Court of Appeal on Tuesday, June 17, to a 4-year suspended prison sentence, a €375,000 fine, and 5 years of ineligibility. This sentence is slightly lower than the demands made at the hearing on April 29, which was solely devoted to the sanctions against him, where the attorney general had requested a four-year suspended prison sentence and the same fine, as well as ten years of ineligibility.

This was also the sentence handed down on 9 May 2022 by other magistrates of the Paris Court of Appeal , with the exception of the year of imprisonment he had received at the time. The new hearing also resulted from a decision by the Court of Cassation in 2024, which ruled that this prison sentence had not been sufficiently justified, while the sentences of Penelope Fillon (two years suspended prison sentence, 375,000 euros fine and two years of ineligibility) and of François Fillon's former deputy, Marc Joulaud (three years suspended prison sentence and five years of ineligibility), had on the contrary been definitively confirmed.

From one appearance to the next , however, the former Prime Minister has not changed gear in his defense, playing again and again on the refrain of the political trial. "No one will take it out of my head that I was treated in a somewhat peculiar way ," which "perhaps has something to do with the fact that I was a candidate in the presidential election," declared in April the man who was then eliminated in the first round, arguing that between 1981 and 2021, "a very large majority of parliamentarians" were in a situation "perfectly similar" to his.

There were "wives of MPs who actually worked for their husbands" while in 2012-2013, for example, Penelope Fillon did not come to the Assembly or to the constituency which at the time was in Paris, "not in Sarthe" , retorted Me Yves Claisse, the lawyer for the National Assembly.

The Court of Appeal was also expected to rule this Tuesday on a portion of the damages awarded to the lower house—a total of approximately €800,000 for the three defendants—which the Court of Cassation deemed to be incorrectly assessed. This amount, totaling €126,167, covers Penelope Fillon's contract as parliamentary assistant to her husband for the period 2012-2013. A repayment schedule has been set for the remainder of this compensation, and François Fillon has begun to settle his debt.