France’s election campaign commission saids \u00ab\u00a0a significant amount of data\u00a0\u00bb has been leaked on social networks following a alleged hacking attack centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, but warned that anyone spreading any information in the<\/b>
\nFrance’s election campaign commission said Saturday that \u00ab\u00a0a significant amount of data\u00a0\u00bb from the presidential campaign of candidate Emmanuel Macron has been leaked on social networks following a alleged hack attack and warned that anyone spreading such information in the lead-up to Sunday’s election could face criminal charges.
The watchdog group said in a statement that the leaked data apparently came from Macron’s \u00ab\u00a0information systems and mail accounts from some of his campaign managers.\u00a0\u00bb In a statement released after a morning meeting, the commission said the material had been \u00ab\u00a0fraudulently\u00a0\u00bb obtained and that fake news (\u00a0\u00bb des fausses nouvelles \u00ab\u00a0) has probably been mingled with it.
The commission urged French media and citizens \u00ab\u00a0not to relay\u00a0\u00bb the leaked documents \u00ab\u00a0in order not to alter the sincerity of the vote.\u00a0\u00bb It said spreading of such data \u00ab\u00a0is liable to be classified as a criminal offense.\u00a0\u00bb
Under French law, the candidates and the media are under a 44-hour legal blackout beginning Friday at midnight until the last polling station is closed on Sunday. The law bars any campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying the election.
While the law will keep most of the leaked material out of the mainstream media, it will be difficult to curtail its spread on social media. The law also bars the two presidential runoff candidates, Macron and Marine Le Pen, from commenting on the developments.
Voting already has begun in some French territories, starting with Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago located near Newfoundland, and will also take place in French embassies abroad ahead of voting in France itself on Sunday.
The election pits centrist Macron\u2019s business-friendly, pro-European vision again far-right Le Pen\u2019s protectionist, closed-borders view that resonates with workers left behind by globalization. The outcome could have profound implications for the future of the battered European Union.
The Macron campaign, which warned weeks ago that its computers had been breached, said late Friday that data from the purported hack was dumped online only an hour before the blackout, hamstringing any full response.
With only minutes to spare, Macron’s political movement, known as En Marche, issued a statement saying the unidentified hackers gained access to staffers’ personal and professional emails and leaked campaign finance material and contracts \u2014 as well as fake decoy documents \u2014 online.
Florian Philippot, the No. 2 in Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Front party, asked in a tweet: \u00ab\u00a0Will the #Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism deliberately buried?\u00a0\u00bb
The perpetrators remain unknown. While the hack is shaking up the already tumultuous campaign, it is unclear whether the document dump would affect Macron’s sizable poll lead over Le Pen going into the vote.
The prestigious French newspaper Le Monde published a statement below all election stories online noting the release of the purported Macron documents on the Internet, saying it was \u00ab\u00a0clearly aimed at disrupting the current electoral process.\u00a0\u00bb
Le Monde said it would not publish the contents of any of the documents until after the election because of the sheer volume (15 gigabytes) , the difficulty in crosschecking their validity, and \u00ab\u00a0most importantly, because these files were knowingly published 48 hours before the vote, with the obvious purpose of damaging the sincerity of the ballot.\u00a0\u00bb
If the documents provide to be valid, the newspaper said, it will publish them \u00ab\u00a0in accordance with our journalistic and ethical rules, without being made a tool of anonymous actors’ publishing schedules.\u00a0\u00bb
The hack was reminiscent of the intrusion into the computers of the Democratic National Committee and some of Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton’s staffers before the U. S. presidential election.
WikiLeaks, which was instrumental in spreading the hacked Clinton material, was also playing a role in helping disseminate the French data. In a tweet Friday night, WikiLeaks provided links to the voluminous Macron material.
U. S. Intelligence services have blamed Russia and its surrogates for the U. S. hacking, but it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the French intrusions..
Contributing: Associated Press<\/p>\n

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