Penelope Fillon

Penelope Kathryn Fillon (née Clarke, 31 July 1955) is the Welsh wife of French former politician François Fillon. She was the Spouse of the Prime Minister of France from 17 May 2007 to 10 May 2012. Born and raised in Wales, Fillon is a graduate of the University College London and the University of Bristol Law School. She worked as an English teacher at a secondary school in France in the late 1970s, where she met her future husband. François and Penelope Fillon married in 1980 and have five children. They are Catholic.

Throughout her husband's political career, she has remained fairly uninvolved in national politics and has mostly stayed out of the public eye, and has been labelled "discreet" by the media. Despite her reputation as being private, Fillon ran for a seat on the municipal council of the Solesmes, Sarthe commune in which she and her husband reside. When François Fillon began running for the French presidency in 2017, she emerged in the public eye to campaign for her husband.

Penelope Fillon rose to prominence in January 2017, when French newspaper Le Canard enchaîné published an article in which she was accused of being paid €500,000 in public money over eight years as her husband's "assistant" while performing no or very little work. The public outcry that followed led the controversy to be labelled "Penelopegate" by some, despite her husband denying any wrongdoing.

Biography

Early life and education Penelope Kathryn Clarke was born on 31 July 1955 in Llanover, Monmouthshire, Wales, United Kingdom. The daughter of George "Colin" Clarke, an English solicitor, and Glenys, a Wales native, she considers herself "Anglo-Welsh."

Fillon attended primary and secondary school at King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, studying French, German, and English. At the mayor's request, Fillon ran for his former seat, running as the Union for a Popular Movement candidate.

2017 presidential election

In 2017, François Fillon commenced his campaign for the French presidency. Fillon, who for much of her husband's political career had remained in relative obscurity, emerged to campaign for him and especially to try to reach the female vote, representing the movement "Women with Fillon".

Personal life François and Penelope Fillon have five children: Marie (born 1982) and Charles (born 1984), both lawyers, Antoine (born 1985) and Edouard (born 1989), who both work in finance, and Arnaud (born 2001), who was a high school student. They also have three grandchildren. A preliminary hearing immediately opened. The public outcry around this so-called "Penelopegate" was such that doubts were voiced about François Fillon himself, who was at the time the frontrunner for the 2017 presidential election, with an immediate sharp decline in the opinion polls.

On 31 January, new reporting by Le Canard enchaîné found that Penelope Fillon was actually paid €300,000 more than previously reported, for a total sum of €831,440 for 15 years of her parliamentary assistant work. It also reported that Fillon had paid two of his children €84,000 for little apparent actual work. However, on 28 March 2017, she was placed under formal investigation following a day of questioning by magistrates.

In June 2020, Fillon was convicted of embezzlement of public funds and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Her sentence was suspended and she vowed to appeal the conviction.

On 9 May 2022, a French appeals court reduced Filon's sentence to a two-year suspended prison sentence. Her husband's prison sentence would be shortened to four years with three years suspended. The court maintained fines of €375,000 for each of them.