 A preliminary hearing immediately opened.The public outcry around this so-called "Penelopegate" was such that doubts were voiced about François Fillon himself, who was at the time the frontrunner for the 2017 presidential election, with an immediate sharp decline in the opinion polls.On 31 January, new reporting by "Le Canard enchaîné" found that Penelope Fillon was actually paid €300,000 more than previously reported, for a total sum of €831,440 for 15 years of her parliamentary assistant work.