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> 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> France's electoral commission has ordered media not to publish contents of Emmanuel Macron's leaked campaign emails to avoid influencing the election.

It warned news outlets in France that journalists could face criminal charges for publishing or republishing the material, under laws that came into effect at midnight forbidding any commentary liable to affect the presidential race.

There were fears the hack could swing Sunday’s final vote, where Mr Macron was expected to comfortably beat far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 USD 0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.

As much as 9GB gigabytes of data were posted on a profile called EMLEAKS to an anonymous document sharing site under two days before the final vote.

While French election rules forbid the media from publishing the emails, they also ban Mr Macron or his team from commenting on or denying any allegations.

His En Marche! party said it had “been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack” on Friday evening, adding that it had “given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information”.

A spokesperson said the communications 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”.

“This operation is obviously an attempt at destabilising democracy, as has already been seen in the US during the last presidential campaign,” he added.

“The ambition of the authors of this leak is obviously to harm the En Marche! movement within hours of the second round of the French presidential election.”

Shape Created with Sketch. French Presidential Election Show all 20 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. French Presidential Election 1/20 Voters line up to cast their ballots REUTERS 2/20 REUTERS 3/20 REUTERS 4/20 Police patrol polling stations in France REUTERS 5/20 REUTERS 6/20 REUTERS 7/20 REUTERS 8/20 REUTERS 9/20 Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux REUTERS 10/20 Emmanuel Macron casts his ballot REUTERS 11/20 SAA/ 12/20 REUTERS 13/20 Front National leader Marine Le Pen casts her ballot REUTERS 14/20 Early ballots are read as results continue to come in Reuters 15/20 Macron supporters react as results come in early in the evening AP 16/20 Supporters of Front National leader Marine Le Pen cheer as early results come in Reuters 17/20 Alamy 18/20 Front National leader Marine Le Pen takes to the stage to address her supporters as fans cheer Reuters 19/20 Emmanuel Macron greets supporters on Sunday night AP 20/20 Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux celebrate the incoming results EPA 1/20 Voters line up to cast their ballots REUTERS 2/20 REUTERS 3/20 REUTERS 4/20 Police patrol polling stations in France REUTERS 5/20 REUTERS 6/20 REUTERS 7/20 REUTERS 8/20 REUTERS 9/20 Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux REUTERS 10/20 Emmanuel Macron casts his ballot REUTERS 11/20 SAA/ 12/20 REUTERS 13/20 Front National leader Marine Le Pen casts her ballot REUTERS 14/20 Early ballots are read as results continue to come in Reuters 15/20 Macron supporters react as results come in early in the evening AP 16/20 Supporters of Front National leader Marine Le Pen cheer as early results come in Reuters 17/20 Alamy 18/20 Front National leader Marine Le Pen takes to the stage to address her supporters as fans cheer Reuters 19/20 Emmanuel Macron greets supporters on Sunday night AP 20/20 Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux celebrate the incoming results EPA

En Marche! previously complained about attempts to hack its emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks despite denials from the Kremlin.

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Officials said it had been the target of failed attempts to steal email credentials dating back to January, identifying a hacking group operating in Ukraine.

Vitali Kremez, director of research with US-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, told Reuters APT 28, a group tied to Russia’s military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak.

The collective, also known as “Fancy Bear” and “Sofacy”, has been linked to cyber attacks on the Democratic National Committee during the US election, the White House, German Parliament, Nato and French media.

Last month, APT 28 hackers registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of En Marche!, which were used to send corrupted emails to hack into the campaign’s computers, Mr Kremez said.

“If indeed driven by Moscow, this leak appears to be a significant escalation over the previous Russian operations aimed at the US presidential election, expanding the approach and scope of effort from simple espionage efforts towards more direct attempts to sway the outcome,” he added.

Far-right American activists are believed to be behind early efforts to spread the documents on social media, before they were picked up by Ms Le Pen’s supporters in France.

The leaks emerged on 4chan, where an anonymous poster provided links to documents on Pastebin with the message: “This was passed on to me today so now I am giving it to you, the people.”

The hashtag #MacronLeaks was spread by prominent Twitter accounts including that of Jack Posobiec, a pro-Donald Trump activist and employee of the far-right site Rebel TV.

The cyber attack came after repeated allegations of Russian interference in elections across Europe and the US, with Mr Macron previously targeting state media including Russia Today and Sputnik for spreading “fake news” to damage his campaign.

The two government-owned news outlets has announced legal action against Mr Macron over his allegations, which came after the politician denied unsubstantiated reports of an alleged offshore bank account.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor of both RT and Sputnik, said: “We are tired of their lies. We will sue them.”

Mr Macron has filed a legal complaint over the reports, which were raised by Ms Le Pen during a heated television debate.

The Paris’ prosecutor’s office said no one was named in the complaint, which has triggered an inquiry into the suspected spread of false stories aimed at influencing the election.

Vladimir Putin has dismissed allegations of interfering in foreign elections including the US and Germany, hitting out at unproven "rumours".

“We never interfere in other countries’ politics and we want no one to meddle in ours,” the Russian President said during a tense press conference with Angela Merkel.

“Unfortunately, we have seen the opposite happening for years. We have seen attempts to influence political processes in Russia through the so-called NGOs and directly.

“Realising the futility of such efforts, it has never occurred to us to interfere." </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Strict election rules are now in place ahead of Sunday's vote

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.

The centrist Mr Macron faces far-right candidate Marine Le Pen on Sunday.

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.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Mr Hollande was speaking as he visited a cultural institute in Paris on Saturday

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.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Polling is already under way abroad, as here in French Guiana

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."

Can a ban work?

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?"

What data was released?

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.

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.

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.

Please enable Javascript to view our poll of polls chart. About the polling average line The polling average line looks at the five most recent national polls and takes the median value, ie, the value between the two figures that are higher and two figures that are lower. See individual polls

Is this unprecedented?

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.

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.

Economic challenges facing next president

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

BBC coverage

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> 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. </s> An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules that forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, which took effect at midnight on Friday.

The presidential election commission said in statement that it would hold a meeting later on Saturday after Macron’s campaign informed it about the hack and publishing of the data.

It urged the media to be cautious about publishing details of the e-mails given that campaigning had ended, and publication could lead to criminal charges.

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 Sunday at 6pm 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. The latest surveys show him winning with about 62 % of the vote.

Former economy minister Macron’s campaign has previously complained about attempts to hack its emails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks.

On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a attempts to steal e-mail credentials dating back to January, but that the perpetrators had failed to compromise any campaign data.

The Kremlin has denied it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron’s camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers’ group operating in Ukraine.

Vitali Kremez, director of research with New York-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, told Reuters his review indicates that APT 28, a group tied to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. He cited similarities with US election hacks that have been previously attributed to that group.

APT28 last month registered decoy internet addresses to mimic the name of En Marche, which it likely used send tainted emails to hack into the campaign’s computers, Kremez said. Those domains include onedrive-en-marche.fr and mail-en-marche.fr.

"If indeed driven by Moscow, this leak appears to be a significant escalation over the previous Russian operations aimed at the US presidential election, expanding the approach and scope of effort from simple espionage efforts towards more direct attempts to sway the outcome," Kremez said. </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> 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> 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.
France's electoral commission orders French media not to publish contents of Emmanuel Macron's leaked campaign emails to avoid influencing the presidential election, warning journalists could face criminal charges for publishing the material.