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Right leader awaits her chance in roller-coaster French race

Europe's shift to the right, the victory of Brexit in Britain and Donald Trump's ability to win over American voters form the backdrop to a contest being watched closely around the world.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is the main reason Europe is holding its breath ahead of France's presidential vote which could propel her to power

In France itself, the context is highly unusual -- Francois Hollande is the first French president since 1958 to renounce a bid for a second term, after a trouble-plagued five years in power.

An already unpredictable contest has taken a new turn with mounting accusations that conservative candidate Francois Fillon had used public funds available to MPs to pay his wife and children hundreds of thousands of euros for "fake jobs".

Fillon, 62, a deeply Catholic former prime minister who snatched the Republicans nomination by campaigning as a man of integrity, was the long-time frontrunner.

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Now embroiled in accusations made by the Canard Enchaine newspaper, critics are beginning to wonder aloud if he can carry on.

A poll Wednesday showed for the first time that Fillon would crash out in the first round of voting, on April 23.

"I will be a candidate," he insisted Wednesday after he was mobbed by reporters at an ordinarily routine campaign appearance.

Fillon had earlier told lawmakers of his Republicans party that he was the target of an unprecedented smear campaign. "We know where this affair comes from, it comes from the government, it comes from the left," he said, according to those at the closed-doors meeting.

The main beneficiary of Fillon's woes is centrist Emmanuel Macron, the photogenic 39-year-old former investment banker who served as economy minister in Hollande's cabinet -- and irritated some colleagues with his raw ambition.

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Macron is rising fast, but his programme remains short on detail.

It is early days, but the survey published Wednesday, of 1,053 people by the Elabe group, showed Macron would reach the second round and face Le Pen in a runoff.

Focus on Le Pen

Le Pen, however, is the main reason that Europe is holding its breath ahead of May's presidential result.

The 48-year-old has worked hard to try to give her National Front (FN) party a softer image after her father, Jean-Marie, repeatedly described the Nazi gas chambers as a mere "detail of history".

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She senses her chance to seize power, riding a wave of suspicion of mainstream politics.

Le Pen wants to pull France out of the EU -- a potentially mortal blow for the ailing bloc -- and her proposals to give French nationals priority over housing, for example, still raise hackles for many.

Yet the party is a slicker, more media-savvy operation than when her rabble-rousing father reached the presidential runoff in 2002, only to lose to Jacques Chirac.

But polls currently show she wouldn't win the second-round runoff in May, as voters switch to her opponent.

Le Pen has her own expenses troubles at the European Parliament, which is demanding that she repay 300,000 euros ($323,000).

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Audacious comeback?

While Fillon knocked out former president Nicolas Sarkozy in the conservative primary, Benoit Hamon put paid to the hopes of former prime minister Manuel Valls in the leftwing contest.

A 49-year-old radical leftwinger with an ambitious proposal to pay a universal basic income in a world of dwindling work, Hamon will probably need to gather the votes of Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon to stand any chance.

But for the next few days, all eyes will be on Fillon.

He has admitted to employing his wife, Penelope, and two of his children during his long career in parliament, with Le Canard Enchaine reporting they were paid a combined pretax income of around 900,000 euros ($970,000).

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But Penelope is accused of having barely worked for her salary, which reportedly reached 10,000 euros a month in 2007, leading to a preliminary investigation into possible misuse of public funds.

Penelope also worked at a literary review owned by a billionaire friend of her husband's, where she allegedly earned another 100,000 euros.

After investigators searched parliament and interviewed Fillon and his wife at length this week, cracks are starting to show in the increasingly anxious Republicans party.

Who could stand in if Fillon is forced out?

Several names were on the lips of rightwing lawmakers on Wednesday.

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Some suggested Alain Juppe, the 71-year-old political veteran whom Fillon beat in the party's November primary.

But others hinted that a former president who claimed last year that he would withdraw from political life could make a comeback.

Is France ready for an audacious new bid by Sarkozy?

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