French press review 22 March 2017

Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux resigns over his own teenage daughters’ parliamentary jobs while François Fillon’s Penelopegate scandal is worsened by new revelations.

After the Penelopegate suspected fake parliamentary jobs scandal, dogging Republican Presidential candidate Francois Fillon's campaign, and National Front leader Marine Le Pen's investigation for defrauding the European Parliament of funds and illegal campaign financing, it's the turn of Interior Minister Bruno Le Rou

He was forced to resign on Tuesday after revelations that he hired his two teenage daughters to work as parliamentary aides during their holidays, for a total of 55,000 euros.

The allegations prompted comparisons with scandal-hit Fillon, now facing an expanded probe into "aggravated fraud, forgery and use of forged documents to try to justify around 700,000 euros earned by his wife Penelope and children while serving as his parliamentary assistants.

Several commentators believe the opening of a preliminary investigation into Le Roux's recruitment of his teenage daughters is more bad news for Fillon.

According to Le Courrier Picard, the Conservatives will be wrong if they go celebrating the revelations. Under such an atmosphere, it says, the affair of another politician caught up in a financial scandal won’t erase the previous one, but aggravate it.

For Libération, by asking his Interior Minister to step down, President François Hollande has chopped off the branch of the tree on which the Republicans had been hanging on.

The paper says the denunciation by conservative spin doctors of double standards and a witchhunt by the government and the media against Fillon have all crumbled.

The Le Roux affair has broken out at a terrible moment for Fillon holds La Montagne. The regional newspaper argues that it has revived the conservative candidate's anguish at a moment when he was about to re-launch his campaign. Paris-Normandie agrees, claiming that this new scandal will not be good news for Francois Fillon's political clan.

According to L'Est Républicain the speed at which the Interior Minister was dumped from the government confirms that François Fillon is neither the victim of political assassination or plot not a political witch hunt like his staunchest supporters have held.

L'Est Républicain holds the view that the opening of a preliminary investigation into Le Roux's conduct comes to confirm the judiciary is working expeditiously, not only for some, but for every citizen.

For the economic newspaper, Les Echos, by sacrificing one of his friends, President François Hollande has made sure that he will no longer be accused of inciting the justice system against François Fillon.