Fillon was found guilty in 2020 but appealed the decision. He and his wife Penelope, however, could not provide evidence that she had actually worked for her husband over the course of several contracts under which she was hired to be his parliamentary assistant during his time as an MP.
The appeals court last year upheld the verdict, handing him a four-year suspended prison sentence and a €375,000 fine. The 72-year-old did not appeal that decision to a higher court.
Former President Nicolas Sarkozy, under whom Fillon served, was also stripped of his Légion d’honneur last year after being found guilty of corruption and exhausting all his appeals.
Sarkozy is fighting his conviction in another case for receiving money from Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to fund his first presidential run in 2007. A first court found him guilty and sentenced him to five years in prison, but he has appealed the verdict and continues to profess his innocence.
