Fillon under pressure as fake-work row rages

France faces a week of political uncertainty with Francois Fillon, the right-wing presidential candidate, under mounting pressure to quit the race because of a fake-jobs-for-the-family scandal and divisions over whether, and how, to replace him.

As Fillon's two closest rivals, the far-right's Marine Le Pen and independent Emmanuel Macron, began vigorously campaigning, the former prime minister appeared to believe he could ride out the storm engulfing his faltering campaign.

Fillon said he would fight to the end to defend his position as the party's nominee. A source in his camp said he would likely reinforce that message on Monday.

Defying opinion polls that show a dizzy downward slide to a point where the one-time favorite is now trailing in third place, he told supporters: "Hold the line."

"We'll get through this ordeal together and march on to victory," he said in a video message on Facebook.

The 62-year-old, a champion of free-market policies to reinvigorate France's heavily regulated economy, has seen his campaign unravel in the two weeks since newspaper Le Canard Enchaine reported his wife Penelope had been paid hundreds of thousands of euros as a parliamentary assistant for work she had not really done.

Humiliating

It has been a humiliating reversal of fortune for Fillon, a father of five children, who had campaigned as an honest politician.

Since the scandal broke, he and his wife have been interviewed by the fraud police, his office in Parliament has been searched, and the inquiry has now been extended to two of his grown children.

The accusations also sit uncomfortably with his economic plans for setting France back on to its feet include slashing public spending.

If he is forced to quit as the center-right's nominee, it would be unprecedented in six decades of French politics.

In the city of Lyon, Le Pen told thousands of flag-waving supporters that she alone would protect them against Islamic fundamentalism and globalization if elected.

Macron, also in Lyon, focused his attacks on the woman who is now his main rival - calling her policies a betrayal of French values of liberty, fraternity and equality.