The frontrunner in France's presidential election, Emmanuel Macron, received yet another boost to his candidacy on Sunday when nine centre-right lawmakers decided to rally behind him, reports Reuters.
The nine senators from the UDI-UC centre-right parliamentary group wrote a joint op-ed in the Journal du Dimanche (JDD) weekly to say they would support Macron, a former minister in socialist President François Hollande's government, because of his pro-European stance and bid to go beyond the Left-Right political divide.
"Emmanuel Macron's method is the right one," they wrote, adding: "He wants to bring people together ... and trigger a new dialogue between the French people and their representatives."
François Fillon was the frontrunner for France's April and May presidential election until an investigative weekly reported in late January that he had paid his wife as his parliamentary assistant for work she did not do. He denies any wrongdoing but magistrates put him under investigation, a first for a presidential candidate in France.
Macron, an independent centrist who created his own En Marche! party last year, is now topping the polls and is forecast to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in an election run-off. The high number of undecided voters, however, means the ballot remains quite unpredictable.
The UDI-UC group in the French Senate brings together the UDI party, which is allied with Fillon's Les Républicains party for the presidentials, and other centrist parties.