France’s Juppe says will make statement to the press Monday morning

What impact will the Trump administration have on feds? “The pilot is in the cockpit, the door is locked so it’s hard to talk with him, but we don’t want the plane to crash”, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, a senator from Fillon’s The Republicains party told LCI television on Saturday.Bruno Le Maire, Fillon’s former adviser on worldwide affairs, who resigned after the candidate revealed he could be placed under formal investigation, said on Saturday that Juppe was the obvious choice.

Later in the day, the Republicans party’s political committee, including the primary candidates, will meet. A string of allies have defected from Fillon’s campaign, angry that he is still running even though he faces impending charges. On Monday morning, Juppe – who was himself found guilty of misuse of public funds in the 1980s and 90s – summoned journalists to a news conference to tell them “no”. France 2 confirmed Fillon’s evening slot declining to give further details.

Another right-wing former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, added his voice to the critics, telling BFM TV station that he would not vote for Mr Fillon. It’s legal in France to hire relatives for public jobs, but they must actually do the work. And Francois Baroin, a former finance minister, emerged as the latest possible replacement for Mr Fillon. The demonstration was peaceful and involved many families.

Most surveys show far-right leader Marine Le Pen and 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron would progress to the runoff on May 7.

Le Pen tweeted the images in December 2015, in response to a reporter who had compared her populist anti-immigrant, anti-EU party to ISIS.

France’s embattled rightwing candidate Francois Fillon told party colleagues at a crisis meeting on Monday that there was no alternative to him despite a fake jobs scandal engulfing his presidential bid.

The battle between Mr Fillon and his party may be entering the end game, she says. However, there was no evidence showing that Fillon’s wife had really worked.

The BVA poll was carried out between February 28 and March 2, only partly after Fillon’s announcement that he could be placed under formal investigation over allegations he paid his wife hundreds of thousands of euros of public money to do very little work. She also is also facing an inquiry into the alleged misuse of almost 300,000 euros ($317,000) in European Union funds that an EU watchdog says was illicitly paid to party staff between 2011-12.

Fillon must finish in the top two in first round voting on 23 April to make it through to presidential run-off two weeks later.

He will hold a rally Sunday near the Eiffel Tower widely seen as a way to measure support via the numbers he can muster.

The Paris rally could be Fillon’s last stand, amid growing pressure on him to quit the race because of corruption allegations.

“He is the only one who can raise France up again”, Luc said.