François Fillon

François Charles Armand Fillon (born 4 March 1954) is a French retired politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 2007 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Fillon was born on 4 March 1954 in Le Mans, Sarthe, France.

His father, Michel, is a civil law notary, while his mother, Anne Soulet Fillon, is a history professor of Basque descent.

His youngest brother, Dominique, is a pianist and jazz musician.

Fillon received a baccalauréat in 1972.

He then studied at the University of Maine in Le Mans where he received a master's degree in public law in 1976.

He subsequently received a master of Advanced Studies (diplôme d'études approfondies) in public law from Paris Descartes University.

By appointing as Secretary of State André Santini, who had been indicted in the Fondation Hamon affair on charges of corruption, Fillon made the first break since 1992 with the so-called "Balladur jurisprudence", according to which an indicted governmental personality should resign until the case is closed.

Fillon became Jean-Pierre Raffarin's Minister of Labour in 2002 and undertook controversial reforms of the 35-hour working week law and of the French retirement system.

In 2004, as Minister of National Education he proposed the much debated Fillon law on Education.

In 2005, Fillon was elected senator for the Sarthe department.

His role as a political advisor in Nicolas Sarkozy's successful race for president led to his becoming prime minister in 2007.

The day after Nicolas Sarkozy became President he appointed Fillon as Prime Minister of France, charging him with the task of forming a new cabinet, which was announced on 18 May 2007.

On 13 November 2010, Fillon resigned, paving the way for a cabinet reshuffle.

One day later Sarkozy reappointed Fillon as Prime Minister, allowing Fillon to formally name a new cabinet.

Fillon resigned upon Sarkozy's defeat by François Hollande in the 2012 presidential elections.

Following the defeat of Nicolas Sarkozy to François Hollande in the 2012 presidential election, Fillon resigned on 10 May.

Following the inauguration of Hollande as president on 15 May 2012, Jean-Marc Ayrault, Mayor of Nantes, was appointed to succeed Fillon as Prime Minister.

Aiming at building consensus within the diverging views at the UMP after Francois Hollande's victory in the French presidential elections in 2012, Fillon declared his candidacy to become the President of the UMP party.

On the day of the vote, both candidates (Fillon and Jean-François Copé) claimed victory and accused the other of cheating.

This led to a major political crisis within the party with votes being recounted twice and Copé finally being declared winner.

Fillon threatened to split from UMP unless new elections were organised.

He formed a new parliamentary faction, the Rassemblement-UMP group.

In December 2012, Copé agreed to organising elections in 2013, thus putting an end to the crisis.

Running on a platform described as conservative, he won the 2016 Republican presidential primary, defeating Alain Juppé.

Fillon entered the 2016 Republican presidential primary, held on 20 November 2016, and seemed a likely third as late as a week before the vote.

In early counting, Fillon emerged as the clear frontrunner, with Alain Juppé in second place.

Third place Sarkozy conceded, bringing his support to Fillon, and Fillon and Juppé went into the run-off on 27 November 2016.

As of November 2016, Fillon was seen as the frontrunner for the Presidency against the Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.

However, revelations of series of political scandals at the end of January shattered his presidential bid, with polls rapidly showing him behind both Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron and out of the runoff.

He was the nominee of the Republicans (previously known as the Union for a Popular Movement), the country's largest centre-right political party, for the 2017 presidential election where he ranked third in the first round of voting.

Following his victory in the primary, opinion polls showed Fillon as the frontrunner for the 2017 presidential election.

But in March 2017, he was formally charged in an embezzlement investigation in a case that became known as "Penelopegate" due to the involvement of his wife.

In April, he finally came third in the first round with 20%, and was therefore excluded from the run-off between the top two finishers.

Juppé conceded to Fillon, pledging his support for him as the Republican nominee in the 2017 presidential election.

In 2020, he was convicted of fraud and misuse of funds, and sentenced to five years in prison (three of them suspended).

He has appealed against the sentence.

In May 2022, the sentence was shortened to four years in prison (three of them suspended).

In December 2021, Fillon was named as a member of the Board of Directors of SIBUR Holding, the largest integrated petrochemical company in Russia.

He resigned from this position in February 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.