Francois Fillon wins French Republican presidential nomination

François Fillon, France’s former prime minister, has won the Republican presidential primary race to become the French right’s presidential candidate next spring, The Guardian reports.

However, in an interview with Le Journal de Dimanche released on Sunday, Valls said “ready” for left-wing primary, warning that the Left “could get pulverised during the evening of the first round (of presidential election)”.

Fillon goes forward as his party’s candidate for next year’s first-round of presidential polling on April 23 when the field of candidates across the political spectrum will be whittled down to two for the decider on May 7.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, a leading conservative and a key architect of Europe’s response to its recent debt troubles, said Tuesday that Fillon’s program “has strong plausibility (on) how France could better display its true strengths”.

With the Republican candidate in place, attention will now turn back to the ruling Socialist Party and the future of Francois Hollande, the least popular French president in half a century.

Fillon proposes to cut twice as many public sector jobs as Juppe, lower corporate taxes, take on trade unions and reduce the role of the state, like his hero, Margaret Thatcher.

In this Wednesday file picture, far-right leader Marine le Pen poses as she inaugurates her campaign headquarters in Paris, France.

A Fillon presidency would be a continuation of Hollande’s on both immigration and identity issues, Florian Philippot told French television.

Partial results placed Mr Fillon (62) – considered an also-ran until a few weeks ago – far ahead of Mr Juppe, also a former prime minster, in a vote to lead the Republican party, with nearly 70pc of the vote.

Francois Fillon waves during a political rally of the second round of the rightwing presidential primary, in Paris on Friday.

While Juppe’s economic platform was slightly milder than Fillon’s, his praise for France’s diversity was an easier target for the anti-immigration National Front. Marginalised voters, it argues, are “being driven into the arms of the National Front by unemployment and uncontrolled immigration”.

“The left will be eliminated for a long time”, he warned on French radio.

France’s government spokesman is insisting that Socialist President Francois Hollande and his prime minister can’t compete against each other in an upcoming presidential primary – except if the second quits. France “wanted action” and had to be overhauled in a way that it “hasn’t been for 30 years”.

Fillon’s attitude toward radical Islam even made him friendly towards Russian Federation, with Fillon saying France should collaborate with Russian Federation to crush Islamic State in Syria.

Fillon’s victory will send him into an electoral battle that opinion polls say will boil down finally to a duel with far-right leader Marine Le Pen next May.

Mr Fillon continued to claim that the “biological” meaning of parenthood should be restored “in respect of a father and a mother”.