French candidate alleges hack
Macron campaign claims ‘massive’ attack as Sunday’s election nears
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 Mr. Macron’s campaign that it had suffered a coordinated online pirate attack that had led to the leak of campaign emails and financial documents. It was unclear who was behind the hack and the leak.
A campaign blackout starting minutes after the Macron team announcement means that Ms. Le Pen’s campaign can’t legally comment on the leak.
In a statement, Mr. Macron’s En Marche movement said the hack took place a few weeks ago and the leaked documents have been mixed with false documents to “seed doubt and disinformation” and destabilize Sunday’s presidential runoff. Hillary Clinton’s U.S. presidential campaign suffered similar leaks and also said authentic and false documents were mixed.
The documents’ release just before France enters a roughly two-day blackout — during which politicians, journalists and even ordinary citizens are meant to pull back from any public election talk to avoid swaying the vote — means the leak may have little impact beyond the overheated world of Twitter and Reddit.
Or, the messages’ release just before France’s political machinery shuts down for the weekend might mean that talk of the leak — regardless of its veracity — will dominate dinner conversations as voters make up their minds Saturday.
The candidates stopped campaigning at midnight Friday. It’s a stark choice: Ms. Le Pen’s anti-immigration, anti-European Union platform, or Mr. Macron’s progressive, pro-EU stance.
Tensions marred the race 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 are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Mr. Macron. Earlier in the day, anti-Le Pen crowds disrupted her visit to a renowned cathedral in Reims.
Ms. Le Pen has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to thepresidency, seizing on workingclass voters’ frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign.