Paris: French President Francois Hollande on Saturday promised a response to the hacking of centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron's campaign following the publication online of thousands of stolen emails and documents.

"We knew that there were these risks during the presidential campaign because it happened elsewhere. Nothing will go without a response," he told AFP during a visit of a cultural institute in Paris.

"If there has been any interference or appropriations, there will be procedures which will begin," he said, adding: "We need to let the investigations happen."

France's electoral commission has warned French journalists not to reveal the contents of the hacked messages on the last day before the election when no campaigning is authorised.

The documents spread on social media just before midnight on Friday in what Macron's team termed an attempt at "democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States".

Hollande added that "since we learned that there are these operations, that there are these threats, we have been extremely vigilant."

He said he was unable to say whether it was an attempt at destabilising the election, as alleged by Macron's team.

"I can't say," he said, speaking at the Arab World Institute while accompanied by the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI. </s> Two Frenchmen arrested in Marseille on Tuesday planned an “imminent and violent attack” ahead of the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, France's interior minister said. France's internal intelligence agency, which had been looking for the two suspects for more than a week, had warned main candidates in the election that there was a threat to their security, campaign officials said.

Comments by officials indicated that former prime minister Francois Fillon, centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen - three leading contenders - were among those warned of a security risk.

These two radicalized men ... intended to commit in the very short-term - by that I mean in the coming days - an attack on French soil, Interior Minister Matthias Fekl told a news conference. A definite terrorist act had been foiled, he said.

France goes to the polls on April 23 and on May 7 in one of the most unpredictable elections in its modern history with security a key issue after attacks by militant Islamists which have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.

The two men - 23-year-old Clement Baur and 30-year-old Mahiedine Merabet - were seized in the southern port city a few moments apart from each other on Tuesday morning.

Local mayor Lisette Narducci said explosives had been found after a search of an apartment near Marseille's largest train station. Sources close to the investigation said at least two assault weapons had been found.

The main candidates were warned in the middle of the last week that there was a risk and that two individuals had been identified. We received their photos and security of the candidates. Their meetings and headquarters were given extra protection, Macron's spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told Reuters.

Officials from Fillon's camp and Le Pen's National Front said they also had received word of a possible attack.

With the country still under a state of emergency, Fekl said 50,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers would be deployed for each leg of the election, and security reinforced for the candidates.

Everything has been put in place to ensure the security of this big event for our democracy and our Republic. The security forces are mobilized everywhere across France to ensure the security of French people and to ensure the presidential campaign goes smoothly, he said. </s> French President François Hollande has promised to "respond" after a hacking attack targeted presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron.

He gave no further details but said he knew of the risks of such attacks because they had "happened elsewhere".

The French media and public have been warned that spreading details of the attack would breach strict election rules and could bring criminal charges.

A trove of documents - said to mix genuine files with fake ones - was released online shortly before campaigning ended on Friday.

Mr Hollande told Agence France-Presse on a visit to a cultural centre in Paris: "We knew that there were these risks during the presidential campaign because it happened elsewhere. Nothing will go without a response."

He did not elaborate, but Mr Macron's team has already been the victim of attacks which it blames on groups based in Russia and Ukraine, and last year's US election campaign was also the subject of hacking attacks targeting the Democratic Party.

Mr Hollande added that he could not say whether the attack was an attempt to destabilise the election.

The BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris says the impact of the hacking attack on the vote is unlikely to be significant, as Mr Macron enjoyed a wide lead in opinion polls that were taken before campaigning ended.

Why is there a ban on spreading the data?

It is part of the restrictions that came into force at midnight local time on Friday.

No campaigning or media coverage of it that could sway the election is allowed until polls close at 20:00 local time (18:00 GMT) on Sunday. Some overseas French territories have already begun voting.

The election commission warned it could be a criminal offence to republish the leaked data.

Politicians and media are forbidden from giving details of, or commenting on, the leak.

The election commission said in a statement on Saturday: "On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot."

Analysts say that, given the open flow of social media content, policing this could be impossible.

The French daily Liberation covered the leak by publishing a general Q&A with a journalist.

Le Monde said it would "not publish the contents before the second round". It said it would vet and publish relevant material but "respecting our journalistic and ethical rules". It also carried a general Q&A of the leaks.

Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Ms Le Pen's National Front party, got a tweet in before the rules came in, saying: "Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately kept silent?"

The documents were leaked on a file sharing website late on Friday. About nine gigabytes of data were posted by an anonymous user.

Mr Macron's En Marche movement said internal campaign documents, including emails and financial data, had been taken in an "act of massive, co-ordinated hacking".

"The leaked files were obtained several weeks ago by hacking personal and professional email accounts of several officials of the movement," it said in a statement.
• Where Le Pen and Macron stand on key issues

How did the leaks spread?

The hashtag #MacronLeaks appeared on Twitter on an account used by a US alt-right figure on Friday afternoon - and was reportedly retweeted 87 times in the first five minutes, suggesting the use of automated bots to spread the information faster.

Within 90 minutes, the information had caught the attention of prominent supporters of Marine Le Pen and was further spread by bots.

Some three-and-a-half hours after the initial tweet, #MacronLeaks had been used some 47,000 times and the prominent Wikileaks account played a key role in publicising the hashtag.
• What we learned from TV debate

Who might be responsible?

Unclear. The Macron camp has not blamed any specific party but said the hack clearly aimed to damage it and undermine French democracy,

It compared it to the leak of Democratic Party emails in last year's US presidential election that was blamed on Russian hackers.

Wikileaks, which published those emails, posted a link to the Macron documents on Twitter but implied it was not responsible.

Macron campaign servers went down for several minutes in February after attacks apparently originating in Ukraine.

And last month, security experts from the company Trend Micro said that Russian hackers were targeting Mr Macron's campaign, using phishing emails, malware and fake net domains in an attempt to grab login names, passwords and other credentials of campaign staff

Mr Macron's team said it suspected the Kremlin of wanting to help Ms Le Pen, who supports a pro-Moscow foreign policy.

Russia has denied that it is behind attacks aimed at Mr Macron.
• Five things the French election has told us

What is at stake on Sunday?

France's voters have rejected the two big political parties - the Socialists and the Republicans - that have governed for decades.

Voters will be making a decision on France's future direction and on its place at the heart of the European Union.

If they opt for liberal Emmanuel Macron, they will be backing a candidate who seeks EU reform as well as deeper European integration, in the form of a eurozone budget and eurozone finance ministers.

If instead they choose far-right Marine Le Pen she promises quite the opposite. She wants a Europe of nations to replace the EU.

What are the battleground issues?

One of the overriding issues is unemployment, which stands at almost 10% and is the eighth highest among the 28 EU member states. One in four under-25s is unemployed.

The French economy has made a slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and all the leading candidates say deep changes are needed.

Marine Le Pen wants the pension age cut to 60 and to "renationalise French debt", which she argues is largely held by foreigners.

Emmanuel Macron wants to cut 120,000 public-sector jobs, reduce public spending by €60bn (£50bn; $65bn), plough billions into investment and reduce unemployment to below 7%.

What the two candidates want

You can follow the French election on the BBC News website. Click here for all our latest stories.

On the day of the election, we will be running a live page bringing together the latest news, video and analysis.

On TV, you can watch a BBC World News Election Special, from 18:30 BST (17:30 GMT / 19:30 local time in France) on Sunday, which will be broadcast on BBC News in the UK and on BBC World News internationally, with Christian Fraser presenting from Paris.

For radio, BBC World Service will broadcast a special extended edition of Newshour from Paris at 18:00 GMT on Sunday. </s> FRANKFURT/PARIS, May 5 (Reuters) – A large trove of emails from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was posted online late on Friday, 1-1/2 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.

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.

READ MORE: Greenpeace activists climb Eiffel Tower to protest Marine Le Pen before France election

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 co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information,” the statement said.



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 (2200 GMT).

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 p.m. (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.

READ MORE: Le Pen vs. Macron: A look at France’s presidential contenders

On April 26, 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.

READ MORE: 2 suspected Islamist radicals charged in thwarted pre-election attack in France

In its statement on Friday, En Marche! said 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. </s> The campaign team of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron said on Friday night it had been the victim of a "massive hacking attack" after a trove of documents was released online.

The apparent hack came on the final day of campaigning in the French presidential election, with Mr Macron, the centrist, facing Marine Le Pen, the far-Right candidate in tomorrow's run-off.

Campaign officials stated authentic documents had been mixed on social media with fake ones to sow "doubt and misinformation" and that it was a clear attempt to undermine Mr Macron.

"The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," Mr Macron's "En Marche!" (Onwards!) party said in a statement. </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> 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> Police have arrested two suspected radicals who were allegedly preparing an "imminent" attack in France.

The news comes as the country prepares to vote this weekend in the first round of its presidential election.

French interior minister Matthias Fekl said at a brief news conference that the arrests took place in the southern city of Marseille.

He said the "radicalised" suspects were preparing to strike Marseille "in the next few days".

"The men are suspected of wanting to commit, in an imminent way, a violent action on the eve of the French presidential election," he said.

According to a source close to the probe, the two suspects are aged 23 and 29, and have been taken into custody by French domestic intelligence service agents.

The source said French police had been hunting the pair since the end of last week, seizing them a few minutes apart in the southeastern port city.

A search of a rented apartment has reportedly been made, and the source says the two men appeared to have turned to radical Islam during a term in prison.

France has remained on high alert since a string of terror attacks that began in 2015, which have killed over 230 people.

France goes to the polls to choose a new president on 23 April, with a second round of voting due on 7 May.

Anti-EU, anti-immigration candidate Marine Le Pen has sought to cast herself as the best defender of France against the threat of fresh attacks.

Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old pro-European candidate appears to have the best chance of beating Le Pen in a run-off.

While radical leftist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon and conservative ex-premier Francois Fillon have also gained ground, transforming the election into a tight four-way race. </s> U.S. lawmakers are drawing a parallel between the recent hack of French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron's campaign emails to the hack that affected Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Rodham ClintonCentrist Macron wins French presidential election Martha Stewart appears to flip off Trump photo Buffett: GOP healthcare plan a ‘huge tax cut for guys like me’ MORE's campaign as she ran for president in the 2016 election. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are blaming Russia for the attacks.

A large archive of what are allegedly Macron campaign emails were leaked online Friday, just two days before the Sunday election. The Macron campaign previously claimed Russia tried to hack their emails, an allegation the Kremlin strongly denies but which has heightened allegations Russia was also behind the recent leak.

Macron is the centrist candidate in the race, while his populist, right-wing competitor Marine Le Pen has drawn comparisons to President Trump.

Clinton has blamed her own loss in the presidential election in part on the leaked emails, which she said "raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me." U.S. intelligence officials have indicated that the Clinton hack came from Russia.

"Russia, again," Sen. John Cornyn John CornynCollins on all-male healthcare working group: 'The leaders obviously chose the people they want' Congress compares French presidential candidate email hack to US Feinstein slams all-male group of senators working on ObamaCare repeal MORE (R-Texas) tweeted, sharing the Reuters report on Macron's hack.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) also denounced Russia for attempting to influence multiple elections. In a tweet, he called for allies to support one another.

Rep. Adam Schiff Adam SchiffCongress compares French presidential candidate email hack to US Top House Dem calls on Trump to 'forcefully' respond to Macron hack Top Intel Dem: Hacking of French candidate 'a nightmare scenario' MORE (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is leading the U.S.-Russia probe, noted that hackers are allegedly mixing fake documents with real ones during their public release.

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) implied Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin's successful interference in the U.S. election "emboldened" him to try to meddle in the elections of another Western democratic state.

The Macron campaign called the leaks a "massive and co-ordinated hack" in a statement reported by Reuters.

"The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said.
The current French President François Hollande vows to respond to the Macron hack attack.