[1][2] He was the nominee of The Republicans (previously known as the Union for a Popular Movement), the country's largest centre-right political party, for the 2017 presidential election in which he ranked third in the first round of voting.

Fillon became Jean-Pierre Raffarin's Minister of Labour in 2002 and undertook controversial reforms of the 35-hour working week law and of the French retirement system.

In December 2021, Fillon was named as a member of the Board of Directors of SIBUR Holding, the largest integrated petrochemical company in Russia.

His father, Michel, is a civil law notary, while his mother, Anne Soulet Fillon [fr], is a history professor of Basque descent.

[3][4] His younger brother, Pierre [fr] is the president of Automobile Club de l'Ouest, responsible for the organization and management of the 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race.

He subsequently received a master of Advanced Studies (diplôme d'études approfondies) in public law from Paris Descartes University.

[9] The day after Nicolas Sarkozy became president he appointed Fillon as Prime Minister of France, charging him with the task of forming a new cabinet, which was announced on 18 May 2007.

Following the inauguration of Hollande as president on 15 May 2012,[16] Jean-Marc Ayrault, Mayor of Nantes, was appointed to succeed Fillon as prime minister.

[20] As of November 2016, Fillon was seen as the frontrunner for the presidency against the Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.

However, revelations of series of political scandals at the end of January shattered his presidential bid, with polls rapidly showing him behind both Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron and out of the runoff.

He then committed publicly to "bring the state budget to balance by the end of the five-year",[25] and reiterated this promise in 2012[26] and proposed a referendum on registration of the fiscal golden rule in the Constitution.

[27] In defending a policy of controlling the deficit, Fillon is in favour of abolishing the wealth tax, which he considers one of the causes of the debt of France.

[34] As member of the National Assembly, he voted against the equalisation of the age of consent for homosexual relations in 1982, against civil solidarity pacts in 1999, and against the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2013.

[37] Fillon is an advocate of cracking down on Salafism and Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups[38] and has stridently warned against the threat of "Islamic totalitarianism".

[42] Fillon lives with his wife, Penelope, and five children, Marie, Charles, Antoine, Édouard and Arnaud, in the 12th-century Manoir de Beaucé, set in 20 acres (8 ha) of woodland on the banks of the River Sarthe 4 km east of the monastery village of Solesmes, near Sablé-sur-Sarthe, and about halfway between Le Mans and Angers.

The public outcry around this so-called "Penelopegate"[53] was such that doubts were voiced about François Fillon himself, who was the frontrunner for the 2017 presidential election,[54] with an immediate sharp decline in the opinion polls.

[57] On 3 March 2017, the OCLCIFF (Central office for the fight against corruption and financial and fiscal crime) executed a search at the Manoir de Beaucé where François and Penelope Fillon reside in the Sarthe department.

[61] On 23 March, Fillon said on national television that Bienvenue Place Beauvau, a book co-authored by Didier Hassoux of Le Canard enchaîné, suggested President François Hollande ran a shadow cabinet to spread rumours about his opponents.

[68] Having lived his whole life in the Le Mans area and having represented it politically, Fillon is an enthusiastic supporter of the city's 24-hour sportscar race, which he has attended nearly every year since he was a small child.

He has also competed in the Le Mans Legend historic sportscar races on the full 24-hour circuit and in a number of other classic road rallies.