France's
election campaign commission said Saturday "a significant amount of
data" has been leaked on social networks following a hacking attack on
centrist Emmanuel
Macron's presidential campaign.
The attack
came 36 hours before the nation votes Sunday in a crucial presidential runoff
between Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Voting already began
Saturday in France's overseas territories and embassies abroad.
The election
commission met early Saturday after reports of the hacking attack emerged just
before midnight Friday, when a mandatory pause in campaigning is required.
The
commission said the leaked data apparently came from Macron's "information
systems and mail accounts from some of his campaign managers." It said the
leaked data had been "fraudulently" obtained and that fake news has
probably been mingled in with it.
The
commission urged French media and citizens "not to relay" the leaked
documents "in order not to alter the sincerity of the vote." French
electoral laws impose a news blackout Saturday and most of Sunday on any
campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying the election.
The
perpetrators of the hacking attack remain unknown and it's unclear whether the
document dump would dent Macron's large poll lead over Le Pen going into the
vote.
Fears of
hacking and campaign interference have simmered throughout France's
high-stakes, closely watched campaign — and boiled over Friday night as
Macron's team said it had been the victim of a "massive and
coordinated" hack.
It said the
unidentified hackers accessed staffers' personal and professional emails and
leaked campaign finance material and contracts — as well as fake decoy
documents — online.
In a cursory
look at the leaked documents, they appear to be largely mundane day-to-day
communications, with a few items so out of character that they might be fakes.
Other documents, which seem to date back several years, don't appear related to
the campaign at all.
The Macron
team's announcement about the hacking attack came just 10 days after the
campaign's digital chief, Mounir Mahjoubi, said it had been targeted by
Russia-linked hackers — but that those hacking attempts had all been thwarted.
Mahjoubi did
not respond to requests for comment amid the campaign blackout Saturday.
According to Fox News report, Florian
Philippot, the No. 2 in Le Pen's anti-immigrant National Front party, asked in
a tweet: "Will the #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative
journalism deliberately buried?"
Meanwhile
voting for France's next president started in some overseas territories
Saturday.
The first
French territory to vote was Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago located
near Newfoundland. Shortly afterward, voting also started in French Guiana and
the French West Indies.
Early voting
in overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean and some French embassies abroad
will begin later Saturday.
The 44-hour
legal blackout on campaigning began Friday at midnight and is due to last until
Sunday at 8.00 p.m. when the last polling stations close on the mainland and
the first pollsters' projections and official partial results are expected.
After
ditching France's traditional left-right main political parties in a
first-round election, voters are now choosing between Macron's
business-friendly, pro-European vision and Le Pen's protectionist,
closed-borders view that resonates with workers left behind by globalization.
The future
of the European Union may hinge on the vote, also seen as a test for global
populism.
Someone on
4chan — a site known, among other things, for cruel hoaxes and political
extremism — posted links to a large set of data. Macron's campaign swiftly
confirmed it had been hacked some weeks ago and that at least some of the
documents were genuine.
Slamming the
hack as an effort to "seed doubt and disinformation" and destabilize
the presidential vote, Macron's movement En Marche said it would "take all
measures" to shed light on what happened. It recalled similar leaks from
Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential campaign.
In other
voting issues, the French voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late
Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign of tampering with ballot
papers in a way that favors Macron. The Le Pen campaign said administrators in
several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le
Pen ballots "systematically torn up."
The French
presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and
flour, protesters clashing with police and the candidates insulting each other
on national television — a reflection of the deep divisions and public
disaffection with politics.
Le Pen, 48,
has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism
and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on
working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration.
Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in the
upcoming parliamentary election campaign.
"We
changed everything," win or lose, Le Pen said in an interview with The
Associated Press on Friday.
The
39-year-old Macron, a former economy minister and investment banker who has
never held elected office, also helped upend France's traditional political
structure with his wild-card campaign outside standard parties.
Many voters,
however, don't like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear her party's racist past,
while worrying that his platform would demolish job protections for workers.
Students in several Paris schools protested Friday against both the candidates.
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