French front-runner hit by ‘massive’ hack

PARIS — The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said late Friday that it has been subjected to a “massive and coordinated piracy action” of emails and other internal communications.

The announcement emerged as the last official day of campaigning in France’s most contentious presidential election in decades drew to a close. Macron, an independent centrist, is facing off against the far-right populist Marine Le Pen. Voters will decide Sunday which candidate becomes France’s next president.

At the end of a highstakes race, the news immediately stoked fears of a targeted operation intended to destabilize the electoral process, especially after reports of alleged Russian hacking in the U.S. presidential election last November.

“Intervening in the last hour of the official campaign, this operation is obviously a democratic destabilization, as has already been seen in the United States during the last presidential campaign,” the Macron campaign said.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the hacking, and the Macron campaign could not be reached for further comment late Friday.

The Kremlin has clear links to the Le Pen campaign. For years, a complex web of financial ties has linked Le Pen to Russian lending sources, and she has received exceedingly positive coverage in Russian state media for months.

In late March, she met in person with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a visit to Moscow.

On Wednesday, hours before the beginning of a televised debate between Macron and Le Pen, Twitter bots spread rumors that Macron maintained offshore bank accounts. Le Pen then repeated the allegation in the debate, causing Macron to say that she was “subject to the diktats” of the Kremlin.

The latest polls still place Macron with a considerable lead over Le Pen, at 63 percent to 37 percent of the vote.