Mr. Fillon, a conservative, was also prime minister from 2007 to 2012. His 2017 presidential bid fell apart after allegations that he paid his wife thousands of euros in public funds for a fake job.
François Fillon, a former French former prime minister, was found guilty on Monday of embezzling public funds in a scandal involving a no-show job for his wife that crippled his front-runner status in the 2017 presidential race and led to a broader resentment of France’s political elite.
Mr. Fillon, 66, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2012, was accused of paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros from the public payroll for little or no work as his aide, over different periods between 1998 and 2013, when he served as a representative in the lower house of the French Parliament.
Mr. Fillon’s wife, Penelope Fillon, 64, was found guilty of complicity in the embezzlement. No sentencing details were announced.
Reports of Ms. Fillon’s no-show job first emerged in the satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné in late January 2017, a few months before the first round of voting, and they were swiftly followed by an official investigation. The accusations were especially damaging for Mr. Fillon, a stern fiscal and social conservative who ran on an image of probity and austerity, calling for economic sacrifices and vowing to slash thousands of civil service jobs.
