French conservative candidate Francois Fillon appealed Tuesday to centrist allies who deserted him over corruption allegations to return to help him win the spring presidential election. With just seven weeks to go before France goes to the polls in the April 23 first round of a two-stage vote, Fillon has remained as the rightwing candidate despite calls for him to allow rival Alain Juppe to stand in his place because of the scandal.

Speaking in Orleans, south of Paris, the former prime minister "solemnly" asked centrists of the UDI party, which suspended its backing of Fillon last week, to close ranks behind him. "We have the same values, the same goals and it is together that we can build a government majority to rebuild France," Fillon said as he tried to jump start a campaign that had all but ground to a halt. "We're all patriots. So let us serve the homeland."

The centrist UDI party hinted it could back Francois Fillon's presidential bid, but said it first wanted to see him take concrete steps to unite his much-divided camp.

"We take note of Francois Fillon's ... decision to continue his campaign and his pledge to take initiatives to bridge divisions with the UDI.... We are waiting to see those initiatives," the UDI's executive committee said. The statement also said the UDI, a much smaller party than The Republicans, would stick by an electoral deal of alliance with them for the parliamentary elections in June that follow the April-May presidential vote.

Scandal-plagued Fillon was hit by a new revelation on Tuesday, this time over an interest-free, undeclared loan he received from a billionaire friend. The conservative candidate "did not deem it necessary" to report the 50,000 euros ($53,000) loan he received from Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere in 2013 to a state transparency watchdog, the Canard Enchaine weekly said in its edition to appear yesterday.

Once the frontrunner to become France's next president in May, 63-year-old Fillon has had to battle to stay in the race because of the revelations that he had paid his wife Penelope hundreds of thousands of euros from public funds, allegedly for fake jobs. The former prime minister is to be charged later this month.

Ladreit de Lacharriere is the CEO of Fimalac, a financial services holding company, and owns the literary magazine La Revue des Deux Mondes. The publication paid Penelope Fillon some 100,000 euros in 2012-13 but there is little evidence of her work. Investigators are looking into a possible link between this job and the bestowal of France's highest civilian honour, the Grand Croix of the Legion of Honour, on Ladreit de Lacharriere in 2011 when Fillon was prime minister.

The Canard Enchaine also said investigators were looking into a consultancy firm called 2F Conseil that Fillon set up in 2012 after he left office as prime minister, which the paper says has paid him hundreds of thousands of euros. Fillon has denied any wrongdoing with his consultancy work.