Hollande vows action over Macron email hack scandal
PRESIDENT François Hollande vowed to take action after hackers leaked emails and documents from presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron’s campaign team just two days before France’s most unpredictable election in decades.
The documents, which were quickly spread on social media by US alt-right groups and WikiLeaks, were dumped online in what the centrist’s team called an attempt at “democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States”.
The files were stolen weeks ago during one of “an intense and repeated” series of cyber attacks against Mr Macron’s En Marche! movement since the launch of his campaign, in which he now faces far-Right leader Marine Le Pen in today’s final round of voting. Mr Hollande said France would respond to the hack.
“We knew that there were these risks during the presidential campaign because it happened elsewhere. Nothing will go without a response,” the Socialist president said.
“If there has been any interference or appropriations, there will be procedures which will begin,” he said, adding: “We need to let the investigations happen.”
Mr Macron’s team said in a statement that “the documents arising from the hacking are all lawful and show the normal functioning of a presidential campaign”. But it warned that whoever was behind the leak had mixed fake documents with real ones “in order to sow doubt and disinformation”.
The country’s election watchdog urged media and citizens not to relay the leaked documents “in order not to alter the sincerity of the vote”.
Intelligence services in Britain and Germany have taken note of the cyber assaults during the French and the recent US elections and are taking steps to prevent similar attacks ahead of their own hotly contested ballots.
The perpetrators of the French leak remain unknown – although cyber experts pointed to Russia – and it was unclear whether the document dump would have any impact on Mr Macron’s lead. The final polls at the end of the dramatic and often bitter campaign put Mr Macron, a 39-year-old former banker who is pro-business and a fer- vent European, on 62 per cent, with Ms Le Pen, a 48-year-old lawyer who is running on an anti-EU, anti-globalisation and anti-immigrant ticket, on 38 per cent.
Betting firm Ladbrokes however said the Front National candidate was attracting 90 per cent of the bets on the eve of the election, as people gamble that France is in line for an upset after the unexpected vote for Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump as US president.
Ms Le Pen’s odds last night were 6-1, while her rival was at 1-10. There was little news on Saturday about the election in the French media due to rules banning any polling or campaigning from midnight Friday until polls close.