Judicial pressure builds on French presidential candidate as vote looms
Revelations that Fillon put his wife Penelope and two of their children on the public payroll have dented his support.
Francois Fillon has pledged to withdraw from the election race if charged over misuse of public funds
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"The many elements already gathered do not point to throwing out the investigation," prosecutor Eliane Houlette said in a statement.
Revelations that Fillon, 62, put his wife Penelope and two of their children on the public payroll have dented his support and boosted prospects for upstart rival Emmanuel Macron ahead of the two-stage vote starting April 23.
Macron has overtaken Fillon in opinion polls, with 39 percent of those surveyed recently by Ipsos giving him a favourable opinion.
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Also riding high is far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, tipped to get past the first-round vote on April 23 but expected to lose to her opponent in the May 7 runoff.
Penelope, 62, is accused of having barely worked for her salary as a parliamentary assistant to her husband and another MP to net at least 680,000 euros ($720,000) over a period spanning some 15 years.
While Fillon has said he would withdraw from the race if he is charged with wrongdoing, he has also asserted that he is the victim of a smear campaign and his lawyers have questioned the legality of the probe.
In a statement, the lawyers reiterated the charge on Thursday that national financial prosecutors were violating the principle of the separation of powers between the judiciary and the legislature.
They argued earlier that Fillon enjoyed discretion in the use of funds available to him as an MP and that the probe into misuse of public funds was therefore "totally inapplicable".
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Fillon, a deeply Catholic former prime minister who snatched the Republicans nomination by campaigning as a man of integrity, was the long-time frontrunner in a race that has turned into a rollercoaster.
The main beneficiary of his woes is centrist Macron, a photogenic 39-year-old former investment banker who served as economy minister under outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande, who is not seeking re-election.
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