LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - The gap between French and German 10-year government bond yields widened marginally and stocks edged off their highs on Wednesday after conservative French presidential candidate Francois Fillon said he would remain in the election race.
Fillon, once the front-runner to win the two-round election in April and May, has been battered for weeks by allegations that he paid his wife to be his parliamentary assistant, but that she actually did very little work.
Fillon said on Wednesday he had been informed he will be summoned on March 15 by judicial magistrates.
French 10-year bond yields edged higher after Fillon sad he would remain a candidate, pushing the gap over German equivalents to around 67 basis points from around 65 bps just before he started speaking .
The euro ticked down against the dollar. The pan-European STOXX 600 slightly reduced gains to trade up 1 percent following Fillon's statement, while France's blue-chip CAC index also came off highs and was last up 1.4 percent on the day.
(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe and Danilo Masoni; Editing by Nigel Stephenson)