PARIS — In personality, François Fillon is a far cry from Donald Trump. But the soft-spoken race car enthusiast's improbable rise to front-runner status in France's presidential election next spring is every bit as shocking in France as the brash billionaire's victory in the U.S. election last month.Like Trump, Fillon, 62, defied pollsters and political pundits by easily winning the presidential nomination of the conservative Les Républicains party after being dismissed as an afterthought in a runoff against former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
