France’s Macron targets political sleaze ahead of manifesto release

French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday he would ban lawmakers from employing family members and from carrying out consulting activities, seizing on his conservative rival’s legal troubles to project a clean image. Standing as an independent centrist, Macron is tipped by opinion polls to defeat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a run-off vote in May. He has shot to the position of frontrunner after conservative Francois Fillon was embroiled in a financial scandal over his wife’s employment as a parliamentary assistant and summoned by a judge on Wednesday.