France’s socialist President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve hit back yesterday at fiery comments by the scandal-hit conservative and far-right candidates for presidential elections due to take place in April and May.
Hollande vowed to support public servants after far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, facing a judicial inquiry over how two assistants were paid, warned officials that they would be personally responsible if they joined “persecutions” and “state plots”.
Meanwhile Cazeneuve said conservative hopeful Francois Fillon was “irresponsible” for saying that the campaign was taking place in an atmosphere of “near-civil war”.
He suggested that Fillon was hoping to distract attention from claims he got his wife a lucrative fake job as his parliamentary aide, charging: “I can understand that certain candidates are tempted to hide the difficulties of their campaigns behind polemics.”
Fillon, whom polls on Sunday and yesterday showed slipping into a third place that would see him eliminated in April’s first round of voting, had on Sunday accused the government of “failing to ensure the conditions for a calm democratic exercise”.
The conservative hopeful pointed to riots in the northwestern city of Nantes on Saturday ahead of a speech by Le Pen, as well as weeks of disturbances in the suburbs of Paris after a police officer allegedly sodomised a young black man with his baton.
Hollande meanwhile took aim at Le Pen, who during a rally on Sunday told supporters that judges “are there to apply the law ... not to thwart the will of the people”.
The head of state said he would “never accept that our republic’s officials can be called into question on the pretext that they are applying the law or seeking to ensure that the justice system can work”.
Le Pen on Wednesday defied a summons from police investigating claims that she wrongly claimed salaries for two aides from the European Parliament.
She has also missed a February 1 deadline set by the parliament for her to repay some €340,000 ($362,000).
Le Pen’s chief of staff Catherine Griset, one of the aides in question, was taken into custody after responding to a summons herself on Wednesday, and was later indicted on suspicion of receiving the proceeds of an abuse of confidence.
Le Pen, who has denied any wrongdoing, enjoys immunity from arrest as a member of the European Parliament.
Her National Front (FN) party, which says the allegations are an attempt to sabotage her campaign, says she will answer any summons after the elections.
The dispute came as polls published on Sunday and yesterday showed centrist former economy Emmanuel Macron consolidating his lead over Fillon and his chances of going through to a likely run-off vote on May 7 against Le Pen.
Sunday’s polls for Le Figaro and France 2 showed Le Pen in first place on 27% of the vote, with Macron on 25%, pulling clear of Fillon by five to six percentage points.
A third poll for Les Echos yesterday put Macron three points ahead of Fillon.
All polls to date suggest that either Macron or Fillon would likely beat Le Pen in the run-off.
The weekend also saw the hopes of the French left to get a candidate through to the second round fade, with Socialist Party candidate Benoit Hamon and radical leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon making it clear that neither was willing to stand aside after a meeting on Friday evening.
Hamon, a leftist opponent of Hollande, has lost potential centre-left voters to Macron and stands on only 13% to 15% in the latest polls, with Melenchon slightly behind.

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