The public prosecutor’s office had requested five years in prison, including a firm under electronic bracelet and 375,000 euros fine against the former Prime Minister.
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The penalty fell. François Fillon was sentenced, Monday, May 9, to 4 years of imprisonment including 3 suspended, 375,000 euros fine and 10 years of ineligibility by the Court of Appeal of Paris in the case of fictitious employment of his wife Penelope. The latter received a two-year suspended prison sentence, son former substitute Marc Joulaud of three years in prison, suspended. For the Fillon spouses, these penalties are lighter than in the first instance.
At first instance, on June 29, 2020, the Matignon tenant from 2007 to 2012 was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, including two years’ imprisonment, a fine of 375,000 euros and ten years of ineligibility, for embezzlement of public funds, complicity and concealment of misuse of corporate assets. His wife had been given a three-year suspended sentence, a 375,000 euro fine and two years of ineligibility, and Joulaud a three-year suspended sentence, a 20,000 euro suspended fine and five years of ineligibility.
On appeal, the public prosecutor’s office had requested sentences lower than those pronounced by the court. Against François Fillon, he had demanded five years in prison, including one year under an electronic bracelet, as well as a fine of 375,000 euros. For his Franco-Welsh wife, the public prosecutor had requested a two-year suspended prison sentence as well as a fine of 100,000 euros and for Marc Joulaud a three-year suspended prison sentence. Ineligibility sentences of ten, two and three years respectively were also requested.
A “cluster of clues” allows to establish the “fiction” of Penelope Fillon’s three jobs as parliamentary assistant to her husband and his deputy between 1998 and 2013, paid a total of 612,000 euros net, supported the general counsel, ironically on activities “impalpable” even “evanescent”.