Independent centrist Emmanuel Macron on Sunday won a landslide victory in France’s presidential election, soon after his campaign had faced a “massive and coordinated hacking attack”. Thirty-nine year old Macron will be the country’s youngest ever president.
Macron won 66.06% of the votes, while his opponent, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, got 33.94%. This is significant, as Macron has never held elected office and was largely unknown until about a year ago. Had Le Pen won, she would have been France’s first woman president. This was also the first time the country’s Socialist and Republican parties did not have contenders for the post.
The leaks took place on Friday when Macron and Le Pen had officially wrapped up campaigning. They were reminiscent of hacking attacks on United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Macron’s team said the files had been stolen weeks ago when several officials from his En Marche Party had their personal and work emails hacked. “Clearly, the documents arising from the hacking are all lawful and show the normal functioning of a presidential campaign,” his aides said in a statement.
WikiLeaks said it was not responsible for the breach, but added that it was “examining” parts of the cache, amounting to around 9 gigabytes of data in total.
Polls released earlier on Friday had showed Macron gaining momentum with around 62% votes as against Le Pen’s 38%. On the same day, Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner on the Eiffel Tower protesting against Le Pen. Their message included the French republican slogan, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and the word “Resist”.
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