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His statement at
his campaign headquarters came after a morning of speculation
that he was about to withdraw following his decision to postpone
a campaign visit to the Paris farm show.
It came as opinion polls continued to show he would lose the
election. The polls show independent centrist Emmanuel Macron
consolidating his status as favorite, and put far-right National
Front leader Marine Le Pen also among the leading candidates.
Fillon's campaign has been dogged since late January by an
official investigation into alleged misuse of taxpayers' money
involving hundreds of thousands of euros paid to his wife and
family. He had been favorite to win until the affair began.
He has denied wrongdoing along with the allegations by a
satirical newspaper that his wife did little work for her salary
as a parliamentary assistant and in other roles.
On Wednesday, he revealed that investigating magistrates
appointed last week to the case planned to put him under formal
investigation, and had summoned him to appear before them on
March 15.
He denounced the process as a "political assassination," but
said he would cooperate with it and appear before the judges as
requested.
"I won't give in, I won't surrender, I won't pull out, I'll
fight to the end," Fillon said.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Adrian Croft, Andrew
Callus and Mark Trevelyan)
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