Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Protests in Paris
High school students face off with officers Friday during a demonstration in Paris on the last day of campaigning before France’s presidential runoff election Sunday.
PARIS — The campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said it suffered a “massive and coordinated” hacking attack and document leak that it called a bid to destabilize Sunday’s presidential runoff.
His far-right rival Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, told The Associated Press that she believes she can pull off a surprise victory in the highstakes vote that could change Europe’s direction.
Fears of hacking, fake-news manipulation and Russian meddling clouded the French campaign but had largely gone unrealized until late Friday’s admission by Macron’s campaign that it had suffered a coordinated online attack that led to the leak of campaign emails and financial documents. It was unclear who was behind the hack and the leak.
A campaigning blackout set by rules and starting minutes after the Macron team announcement meant that Le Pen’s campaign could not legally comment on the leak.
In a statement, Macron’s En Marche movement said the hack took place a few weeks ago and that the leaked documents were mixed with false documents to “seed doubt and disinformation” and destabilize Sunday’s presidential runoff. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s U.S. presidential campaign suffered similar leaks and also said authentic documents were mixed with false documents.
The candidates stopped campaigning at midnight Friday to give voters a day of reflection before the election pitting Le Pen’s anti-immigration, anti-European Union platform against Macron’s progressive, pro-EU stance.
The presidential campaign has been bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police, and the candidates insulting each other on national television.
Tensions marred the race right to the end.
France’s presidential voting watchdog called on the Interior Ministry late Friday to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign that ballot papers were being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates found the Le Pen ballot “systematically torn up.”
Le Pen, 48, has gotten her far-right National Front party closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters’ growing frustration with globalization and immigration.
In an interview in the final hours of the campaign, Le Pen said that win or lose, “we changed everything.” She claimed an “ideological victory” for her populist, anti-immigrant worldview.
“Even if we don’t reach our goal, in any event there is a gigantic political force that is born,” she said from her campaign headquarters. Her party “imposed the overhaul” of French politics and set the tone of the election, she said.
The 39-year-old Macron, too, played a role in upending France’s traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign.
Voters chose Macron and Le Pen in the first-round vote April 23, dumping the traditional parties that have governed modern France. Le Pen said those parties have been “blackballed.”
Many voters, however, don’t like either Le Pen or Macron. They fear Le Pen’s party’s racist past, while worrying that Macron’s platform would demolish worker protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande.
Le Pen, who was pelted with eggs Thursday in Brittany, was met by hecklers at the Reims cathedral. She left through an unmarked door, putting her arms over her head as if to protect herself from projectiles and diving into a black car.
Returning to her headquarters, Le Pen denounced the critics for disrupting a sacred place during her final campaign stop. The site has special meaning for her National Front because of its ties to Joan of Arc, the party’s icon.
In the interview, Le Pen said she was confident she can united country if elected. Macron, by contrast, would worsen divisions, she added.
Macron, who topped all vote-getters in the first round but is widely disliked, also has been booed and heckled frequently as he visited blue-collar workers.
Violent protests broke out in Paris earlier this week against both candidates, with several police officers injured. And critics decried the bitter tone of Wednesday night’s presidential debate.
Le Pen acknowledged in her interview that she became angry at the debate but said she merely was channeling the mood of France.
Macron acknowledged that the French are exasperated by the government’s ineffectiveness, but he dismissed Le Pen’s vision of an infuriated country.
She “speaks for no one. … Madame Le Pen exploits anger and hatred,” Macron told RTL radio.
The negativity from both sides in the election has turned off countless voters.
Students protesting both candidates on Friday blocked high schools and marched through Paris.