French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign team says it has been the target of a "massive and coordinated" hacking attack.

His campaign said in a statement late Friday night that some campaign emails and financial documents were hacked a few weeks ago and are now being circulated on social media, but that they have been mixed with false documents.

It said whoever is behind the leaked documents is trying to "seed doubt and disinformation" and destabilise Sunday's presidential runoff.

Macron's campaign team compared it to emails leaked from Hillary Clinton's US presidential campaign. </s> “A large trove of emails from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was posted online late on Friday, one and a half days before voters go to the polls to choose the country’s next president in a run-off against far-right rival Marine Le Pen,” Reuters reports.



BBC: “The campaign said that genuine files were mixed up with fake ones in order to confuse people. It said that it was clear the hackers wanted to undermine Mr Macron ahead of Sunday’s second round vote.” </s> Frankfurt/Paris: A large trove of emails from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was posted online late on Friday, around a day before before voters go to the polls to choose the country's next president in a run-off against far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data or if any of them were genuine.

In a statement, Macron's political movement En Marche! (Onwards!) confirmed that it had been hacked."The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said.

"The files circulating were obtained several weeks ago due to the hacking of the personal and professional mailboxes of several party officials," Macron's En Marche! (On The Move) party said in a statement on Friday, just as campaigning officially ended ahead of Sunday's election.

En Marche! added that the documents released online only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but that authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation"."The seriousness of this event is certain and we shall not tolerate that the vital interests of democracy be put at risk," it added. Macron's team also said that all the documents were "lawful".

The WikiLeaks website posted a link on Twitter to the trove of documents — saying it "contains many tens of thousands emails, photos, attachments up to April 24, 2017" — while indicating it was not responsible for the leak itself.

WikiLeaks said there were around 9 gigabytes of data in total, saying it was "checking parts" of the cache.

An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules which forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, and which took effect at midnight French time on Friday. Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening just hours before the official ban on campaigning began. The ban is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close on Sunday at 8 pm (1800 GMT).Opinion polls show independent centrist Macron is set to beat National Front candidate Le Pen in Sunday's second round of voting in what is seen to be France's most important election in decades.

Former economy minister Macron's team has already complained about attempts to hack it systems during a fraught campaign, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks. On 26 April, the team said it had been the target of a series of attempts to steal email credentials since January, but that the perpetrators had so far failed to compromise any campaign data.

In February, the Kremlin denied that it was behind any such attacks, even though his camp renewed the charges against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine. </s> Another political campaign has been hit by an email dump. This time, the target is French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron.

On Friday, his campaign said a massive and coordinated hack had breached the email inboxes of several staffers. This came after a mysterious user named “EMLEAKS” apparently dumped the stolen data through torrent files on text storage site Pastebin.

It’s unclear if the information in the dump is genuine. Allegedly, the dump contains a 9GB trove of emails and photos. The torrent files, which were hosted on Archive.org, are no longer available there.

But Macron’s campaign said the leaked files have been spreading over social media as the country prepares to vote for a new president on Sunday.

The incident occurred just months after hackers targeted the campaign of U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by stealing staffers’ emails and then leaking them online.

The U.S. has blamed those hacks on Russian state-sponsored cyberspies, claiming they were tasked with damaging Clinton’s election chances.

Who was behind the Macron hack is still unknown. However, last month security firm Trend Micro said it uncovered evidence that Russian cyberspies were also targeting Macron’s campaign, possibly through email phishing attempts designed to trick users into visiting malicious internet links.

The cyberspies did so by registering several internet addresses that spoofed Macron’s campaign site. One of those internet addresses was named onedrive-en-marche.fr, which appears similar to the campaign’s official domain at en-marche.fr.

Reportedly, Macron’s campaign confirmed the intrusion attempts last week but said they hadn't succeeded.

On Friday, Macron’s campaign said the hacking and leaking of files were designed to destabilize France’s democratic processes.

The U.S. government has claimed Russia plans to interfere with European elections this year, but the Kremlin has denied sponsoring such hacks.

Both the FBI and the U.S. National Security Agency have been working with their counterparts in Europe to help stop similar election-tampering efforts allegedly from Russia. If the hack reported Friday was real, those efforts may have fallen short. </s> French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has been the victim of a “massive and coordinated hacking operation,” his campaign team said, slamming the attack as a last-ditch attempt to undermine him before Sunday’s election.

The document dump happened Friday night, less than 48 hours before the country votes in the final round of the presidential election, which pits the independent centrist Macron against the far-right Marine Le Pen.

The files were released just before 2 p.m. ET Friday, around four hours before the election campaign period officially closed with its restrictions on campaigning, reporting and polling. These restrictions are aimed at preventing last-minute scandals from emerging and influencing the election’s outcome.

Around 14.5 gigabytes of emails, personal and business documents were posted to the text-sharing site Pastebin through links to more than 70,000 files, a CNN look at the data shows.

Officials from Macron’s En Marche! party said in a statement that the perpetrators of the hack had mixed fake documents with authentic ones “to create confusion and misinformation.”

“The leak happened in the last hours of the campaign. This operation is clearly meant to undermine democracy, just like what happened in the US during the last presidential campaign,” the statement read.

US intelligence officials have said Russia meddled in the November elections, and Congress is investigating the allegations. Russia has denied any interference.

En Marche! said that some of the files circulating were obtained several weeks ago after personal and professional email accounts were hacked.

It was not clear who was behind the document dump, but the hack targeting Macron’s campaign used methods similar to the suspected Russian hacks of the Democratic National Committee last year in United States, according to a report issued in April by cybersecurity researchers.

Donald Trump won the election after information from Hillary Clinton’s campaign was released before the vote.

If successful Sunday, Macron, at 39, would become the youngest president in the history of France and the nation’s youngest leader since Napoleon.

He has led a remarkable campaign, defying the traditional mainstream parties courtesy of his En Marche! movement. For many, however, the campaign has become less about backing Macron and instead about voting against Le Pen, the National Front candidate.

French President François Hollande, Republican candidate François Fillon and the Socialist Party’s Benoit Hamon have come together to back Macron, claiming a Le Pen presidency would be disastrous for France.

But Macron also has his critics, who see him as an elite out of touch with the public.

A former economy minister who made millions as an investment banker, Macron has been attacked from both the left and the right for his perceived arrogance.

But two polls released Friday, before polling restrictions went into effect, suggested he still held a 20-point lead.

When asked whether Russia was involved in the Macron email hack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “These, like other similar accusations, are based on nothing and are pure slander.”

Russian officials have vehemently denied interfering in elections and have said they have no preferred candidate in the French vote.

Macron’s party chief, Richard Ferrand, accused Russia of trying to influence the election by spreading “fake news” about the candidate through its state-controlled media while reporting more favorably on Le Pen.

Her anti-Europe and anti-NATO stance are perfectly aligned with Russian interests, and she has consistently called for closer ties with President Vladimir Putin.

She has also expressed a desire to roll back European Union sanctions on Russia after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, which she has described as “unfair and silly.”

It is a stance that contrasts markedly with Macron, a pro-EU, pro-integration candidate who has said he would keep sanctions on Russia in place, if not add to them. </s> PARIS (AP) — France's election campaign commission is examining a hacking attack on candidate Emmanuel Macron's political movement and subsequent document leaks online.

The commission said it would have a meeting early Saturday to discuss the attack.

It urged French media not to publish the documents, warning that some of them are "probably" fake.

French electoral law imposes a blackout Saturday and most of Sunday on any campaigning and media coverage seen as swaying the election, to allow voters a period of reflection before casting their ballots.

Macron is seen as the favorite going into Sunday's runoff against far-right leader Marine Le Pen. </s> With France's presidential election just a day away, the frontrunner, Emmanuel Macron, said his campaign has been hit by a "massive" cyber attack.

Macron is the centrist candidate facing far-right Marine Le Pen in the landmark election. His campaign said a mix of authentic and fake documents were put on social media to sow "doubt and misinformation" and undermine Macron ahead of the election, according to reports.

As much as nine gigabytes of data including emails were posted on a website that allows anonymous document sharing. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data, but suspicion has fallen to Russia after it allegedly interfered in the US election.

Macron's former economy minister previously complained about attempts to hack the campaign's emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the attacks. The team said an attempted cyber attack was made on April 26, but no information was stolen.

Russia has denied it was behind any such attack, according to Reuters.

A ban on campaigning took effect at midnight yesterday ahead of voters heading to the polls Sunday.

The latest survey shows Macron winning with about 62 per cent of the vote.

Read more: Macron poll lead widens as Le Pen tries to boost bid for French Presidency </s> EVE OF FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL RUNOFF VOTE In France, the campaign team of presidential forerunner Emmanuel Macron says it has been hit by a massive hacking attack. 47 million voters are due to head to the polls tomorrow. In a statement, the Macron campaign said their movement has been the victim of a massive hacking incident which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information. Macron’s campaign said the stolen information showed documents relating to the normal functions of a presidential campaign mixed with faked ones in a bid to sow doubt and misinformation. The French interior ministry is refusing to comment citing rules which forbid any commentary that may influence an election which came in to force late last night. </s> PARIS (AP) — 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 high-stakes 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 pirate attack 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 Le Pen's campaign can't 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 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.

The timing of the leak could be seen as either bizarre or inspired.

The documents' release just before France enters a roughly two-day-long 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 that the leak may have very little impact beyond the overheated world of Twitter and Reddit.

On the other hand, 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 table conversations as French voters make up their minds Saturday.

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, anti-European 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.

Le Pen, 48, has brought her far-right National Front party, once a pariah for its racism and anti-Semitism, closer than ever to the French presidency, seizing on working-class voters' growing frustration with globalization and immigration. Even if she loses, she is likely to be a powerful opposition figure in French politics in the upcoming parliamentary election campaign.

In an interview with The Associated Press 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-immigrant worldview.

"Even if we don't reach our goal, in any event there is a gigantic political force that is born," she told AP in 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 key role in upending France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign.

Voters liked the idea, and chose Macron and Le Pen in the first-round vote, dumping the traditional left and right 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 her party's racist past, while worrying that his platform would demolish worker job protections or be too much like his mentor, the deeply unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande.

Students protested both presidential candidates Friday by blocking high schools and marching through Paris.

Le Pen, who was pelted with eggs Thursday in Brittany, was met by hecklers Friday at the Reims cathedral. She left via an unmarked door, putting her arms over her head as if to protect herself and diving into a black car.

Le Pen denounced her critics for disrupting a sacred place during her final campaign stop. The site has special meaning for her National Front party because it's the cathedral where Charles VII was crowned in the presence of Joan of Arc — the party's icon — at a time of war and division.

In the AP interview, Le Pen said she was confident she can bring the divided country together if elected.

"Yes. I want most of all to put democracy back in place ... we must re-weave the links among people." She said.

The pro-business Macron, who topped all vote-getters in the first-round, also has been booed and heckled frequently as he visited blue-collar workers.

Violent protests erupted 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 to AP that she became angry at the debate but said she was merely channeling the mood of France.

Macron acknowledged 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.
Files purportedly from the campaign of Emmanuel Macron are posted online. Macron campaign officials say the files are a mix of fake and authentic documents and drew parallels with what happened in the 2016 US Presidential elections.