Election authorities in France have waned the media - and public - against publishing documents obtained in a "massive and coordinated hacking attack" on presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, threatening criminal prosecution for those who do. Campaigning in France ends one day before voting begins, and candidates can't campaign or give interviews to media on the day before voting.
Many television news channels opted not even to mention the hack, while Le Monde newspaper said on its website it would not publish any of the nine gigabytes of leaked data before the election - partly because there was too much, and partly because it had clearly been released with the aim of affecting the vote.
A tranche of documents were leaked online Friday, just hours before the start of a campaign blackout. In March, the French government suspended electronic voting for French citizens overseas after France's National Cybersecurity Agency reported "an extremely high risk" of cyberattacks and hacking of the election.
The first French territory involved in the early voting was Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, an archipelago located near the Canadian island of Newfoundland, where polling stations opened Saturday morning.
Polls close at 8:00 p.m.in France, which is 2:00 p.m. local time.
Macron's En Marche! (On The Move) party said in a statement that the leaks came "in the last hour of the official campaign" and were "clearly" aimed at "democratic destabilization, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States". While the hack is shaking up the already head-spinning campaign, it's unclear whether the document dump would dent Macron's large poll lead over Le Pen going into the vote.
If opinion polls prove accurate and the country elects its youngest-ever president rather than its first female leader, Macron himself has said himself he expects no honeymoon period.
The hacking attack and leak of both fake and real documents from Emmanuel Macron's campaign began late Friday, just before France's required campaign news blackout descended at midnight.
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According to Nigerian authorities, the nearly seven dozen girls were returned in exchange for prisoners on Saturday. According to BBC , a statement was released on behalf of Nigerian President Buhari about the development.
The documents leaked Friday were widely circulated on USA far-right sites. NPR can not confirm who originally uploaded the leaked documents to the Internet. Le Pen's father Jean-Marie, who led the party before her, was expelled due to numerous statement he made minimizing the Holocaust.
French presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron.
What's interesting to some, in this case, is that the Macron campaign is saying right off the bat that the data dump includes "numerous false documents meant to sow doubt and disinformation".
"We changed everything", win or lose, Le Pen told Associated Press Friday.
The 39-year-old Macron, a former economy minister and investment banker who has never held elected office, also helped upend France's traditional political structure with his wild-card campaign outside standard parties.
Outgoing president Francois Hollande has cast his vote in his political fiefdom of Tulle in south-west France.
May 3 - More than 16 million viewers tune in to see Le Pen and Macron clash in an ill-tempered prime-time TV debate.
In other voting issues, the French voting watchdog urged the Interior Ministry to look into claims by the Le Pen campaign of tampering with ballot papers in a way that favors Macron.
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