Former Prime Minister Alain Juppe said on Monday he would not run in France’s presidential election and harshly criticized his party’s beleaguered candidate, Francois Fillon. Juppe, who came second to Fillon in the party’s primaries in November, had been touted as a potential replacement for Fillon, engulfed by a financial scandal. “I confirm once and for all that I will not be candidate to the presidency of the Republic,” Juppe said in his hometown of Bordeaux, adding that it was because it had become harder than ever to unite his conservative The Republicans party and because voters wanted fresh faces. “What a waste!,” Juppe said of the Fillon campaign, hit by allegations that Fillon misued public funds.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a meeting with Francois Fillon and Alain Juppe to discuss current problems regarding Fillon’s presidential election campaign. Sarkozy, who published a statement on his official Twitter feed, said the aim of the meeting was to ensure a “dignified and credible way out from a situation which cannot last any longer and which is the source of deep concerns among French people.” Once the frontrunner, Fillon is mired in a scandal over hundreds of thousands of euros of public money he paid his wife to be his parliamentary assistant. He denies allegations she did little work for the money.