Yeah, Fillion hired his wife a his parliamentary assistant to pocket the salary. Hiring relatives isn't illegal, provided they do actual work. But she never did anything, and is on record saying so. He also hired his children at some point. In addition, some billionaires paid her vast sums for a few texts to a magazine (She was paid, like, 50 bucks a letter), which looks a lot like a bribe to her husband.
Fillion ran on a persona of personnal probity, especially against Sarkozy, so it's damaging his poll standing a lot.
That "national novel" got me a tad confused, because the Le Pen website does speak of "Roman national", which is a term I didn't know. It does broadly mean "national narrative", but there seems to be a distinction in France between "récit national" (which is pushed by people like Fillion) and "roman national", which both translate as narratives. Both seems to mean an idea of teaching history as a way to justify the existence and greatness of France, but roman has stronger implications, and seems to refers especially to the way history was thaught in the firt part of the 20th century, presenting the country's history as a long line of Great Deed done by Great Men.
Also significant is the " le refus des repentances d’État qui divisent" in the same sentence: the "refusal of state apologies that divides". Basically stop acknowledging that France ever did anything wrong and push a narrative of French greatness.