Amid the scandal-hit French Presidential race, Alain Juppé has announced that he has no intention of replacing conservative François Fillon and standing as a candidate.
Juppé lost out to Fillon in the French Republican primaries and was speculated to replace Fillon who could the French Conservatives onto victory against far-Right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen.
“France needs a renewal, but I will not incarnate that renewal,” he said at a press conference on Monday morning. “It is too late.”
“I repeat, it is too late for me, but it is not too late for France. The country is going through a crisis of confidence but there is also the potential for it to make a comeback.”
Recently seen as the frontrunner in the French election, Fillon is now amid a scandal after it emerged by the Canard Enchaine newspaper he was paying his wife and two children almost 900,000 euros of public money to be his parliamentary assistants and advisors.
Whilst it is legal in France for politicians to hire family members, there is an investigation running to discover the evidence of what work she carried.
The Conservative candidate denied the allegations she did little work for the money but learned last week that he could be placed under formal investigation for the misuse of public funds.
Mrs Fillon broke the silence and told Le Journal du Dimanche she had carried out a “lot of different tasks” for her husband and urged him to “keep going to the end”.
Speaking on French news, Mr Fillon was asked whether he would stand down.
“The answer is no,” he said. “I see no reason to do that. It would lead to a dead end for my political family.”
Opinion polls had shown that Juppe would have progressed into the second round of the election if he had decided to run. Following the investigation, Fillon is not expected to make it past the first round in April.