A day before France polls, Macron hit by huge hack
DIRTY DATA Leading presidential candidate’s emails leaked ahead of critical vote
Leading French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign said it had been the target of a “massive” computer hack that dumped its campaign emails online one and a half days before voters choose between the centrist and his farright rival, Marine Le Pen.
President Francois Hollande on Saturday promised a response to the hacking. “We knew that there were these risks during the presidential campaign because it happened elsewhere. Nothing will go without a response,” he told AFP.
Macron, who is seen as the frontrunner in an election billed as the most important in France in decades, extended his lead over Le Pen in polls on Friday.
As much as 9 gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing.
The documents spread on social media just before midnight as the candidates officially wrapped up campaigning, in what Macron’s team described as an attempt at “democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States”.
France’s election commission took a hard line and sought to keep the hack from influencing the outcome of the election with a warning it could be a criminal offence to republish the data.
Macron has never run for office before and if he wins, will be the youngest French president at the age of 39
His En Marche! party lacks a political infrastructure which will make it hard for the party to win seats in the National Assembly elections in June, which in turn will affect his ability to get much done
Wants many reforms in the EU, including a common budget for the eurozone, a eurozone finance minister and a European Union defence force
Plans a complete overhaul of France’s rigid labour market
Experts say his victory is a
"market friendly" scenario, given his pro-European stance
“The dissemination of such data, which have been fraudulently obtained and in all likelihood may have been mingled with false information, is liable to be classified as a criminal offence,” it said in a statement.
The leak was an 11th-hour twist ahead of Sunday’s decisive run-off after a bruising and divisive campaign pitting the 39-year-old former banker who embraces free-trade against his anti-EU, far-right rival Marine Le Pen.
Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday’s second round of voting, in what is seen to be France’s most important election in decades. Former economy minister Macron’s campaign has previously complained about attempts to hack its emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks.