Protests, leaks in presidential race’s last days
PARIS — Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said Friday she believes she can pull off a surprise victory in France’s highstakes runoff election Sunday, while centrist front-runner Emmanuel Macron suffered a document leak that his team called a bid to throw the vote.
In an interview in the final hours of a hostile, topsy-turvy campaign, Le Pen said that win or lose, “we changed everything.” She claimed an “ideological victory” for her populist, anti-immigration worldview that has dominated a contest that could change Europe’s direction.
Macron’s political movement said late Friday night it has been the victim of a “massive and coordinated” hacking attack that led to the leak of campaign emails and financial documents.
In a statement, the En Marche movement said it was hacked a few weeks ago, and that 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 that authentic documents were mixed with false documents.
Fears of hacking, fake news manipulation and Russian meddling clouded the French campaign but had largely gone unrealized — until Friday’s admission by Macron’s campaign that it had suffered an online pirate attack.
U.S. far-right circles were abuzz with the news that Macron’s campaign had been hit by a major disclosure, but the news comes soon after a crude forgery was circulated on an online message board popular with pranksters and extremists. Wiki-Leaks sounded a skeptical note, saying the Macron leaks might be misinformation.
The candidates stopped campaigning at midnight Friday to give voters a day of reflection before the election. It’s a stark choice: Le Pen’s anti-immigration, antiEuropean Union platform, or Macron’s progressive, pro-EU stance.
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 are being tampered with nationwide to benefit Macron. The Le Pen campaign said electoral administrators in several regions who receive ballot papers for both candidates have found the Le Pen ballot “systematically torn up.”
Earlier in the day, anti-Le Pen crowds disrupted her visit to a renowned cathedral in Reims.
The presidential campaign has been unusually bitter, with voters hurling eggs and flour, protesters clashing with police and candidates insulting each other on national television — a reflection of the widespread public disaffection with politics as usual.
Students protesting both candidates Friday blocked high schools and marched through Paris.