French authorities take hardline over Macron email hacking attack

PanARMENIAN.Net - French authorities took a hard line Saturday, May 6 on what presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron called a "massive" hacking attack on his campaign, warning on the eve of the vote that anyone spreading the information could be committing a crime, AFP reports.

The warning came after the pro-Europe centrist's team lambasted a "massive and coordinated" hack that resulted in the online leak of thousands of emails, accounting details and internal documents late Friday.

It was an unexpected 11th-hour twist ahead of Sunday's decisive run-off after a bruising and divisive campaign pitting the 39-year-old former banker who embraces free-trade against his anti-EU, far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

"The dissemination of such data, which have been fraudulently obtained and in all likelihood may have been mingled with false information, is liable to be classified as a criminal offence," France's electoral commission said in a statement.

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

Macron's team said the files were stolen weeks ago when several officials from his En Marche party had their personal and work emails hacked -- in one of "an intense and repeated" series of cyber-attacks targeting Macron since the launch of the campaign.

"Clearly, the documents arising from the hacking are all lawful and show the normal functioning of a presidential campaign," aides said in a statement.

But they warned that whoever was behind the leak had mixed fake documents with real ones "in order to sow doubt and disinformation".