to have said in the statement i am asking neither for exemption nor favor only for respect of the lawthough his standing has plummeted mr fillon has vowed to press on with his campaign his party the republicans has few good alternativesms le pen and the national front are also targets of several investigations but that has not seemed to affect her poll standingmr fillon experienced a slight reprieve last week when one of his main rivals on the centerright announced that he would not challenge mr fillons candidacy and the republicans closed ranks and agreed to continue backing himsome of mr fillons supporters who had dropped out of his campaign or expressed doubts about his chances have since returned to the fold including the union of democrats and independents a centrist partymr fillon had been trying to steer the news medias attention away from the corruption allegations and toward his platform of probusiness policies including lengthening the standard 35hour workweek and raising the retirement age to 65 from 62still french journalists seem to find new examples of suspected wrongdoing nearly every dayon monday for example le parisien reported that the son and daughter mr fillon hired as aides transferred large sums to him during that time furthering suspicions that their jobs and ms fillons were enrichment schemesa lawyer for mr fillons daughter said she was merely repaying money her father had spent on her wedding mr fillons lawyer said the son was repaying rent and pocket moneymr fillons opponents have been frustrated that the scandal has dominated coverage of the campaign drowning out all but the bestknown candidates and that mr fillon did not keep his promise to drop outi regret the confiscation of the democratic debate jrme guedj a spokesman for the socialist presidential candidate benot hamon said in an interview on bfm tv on tuesday but the main person responsible for this confiscation is franois fillon with this obstinacy and failure to respect the word he gave