French Election: Authorities Warn Publishing Macron Leaks Will Lead to Prosecution (Live Blog)

France’s presidential election is underway, and, at each turn, it gets stranger and stranger. Polls opened all over France on Sunday morning as, for the first time in the European country’s history, two party-less candidates are up for election. And it’s not just any two candidates, either: It’s Marine Le Pen, a far-right xenophobe who originally campaigned as head of the National Front party founded by her father, and Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old former investment banker and Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs who, if elected, will be the youngest president France has ever had. On top of it, the entire European Union project hangs in the balance as Le Pen’s anti-EU stance could very well be the end of the union.

And if all that doesn’t sound eventful and confusing enough, get this: Over the weekend, just as candidates were forced to throw in their campaigning hats to leave a day between campaigning and the elections, in accordance with French law, hackers leaked emails (some allegedly real and while others allegedly doctored) from Macron’s EnMarche! campaign.

French election authorities promptly warned internet users and the nation’s media that anyone who published the leaked content would face legal consequences.

From The Guardian:

France’s presidential electoral authority, the CNCCEP, asked the media to avoid transmitting information from the leaked documents and reminded them of their responsibilities given the “seriousness of the election”.

“This attack has resulted in the publication of a number of important documents presented as having come from the information system of the candidate and the message accounts of certain of their campaign officials on certain social networks,” it wrote after the meeting on Saturday. “The commission stresses that the dissemination or republication of such information, fraudulently obtained and which may, in all likelihood, have been mixed with false information, is liable to be classified as criminal in several respects for which its authors will be held responsible.”

It added: “On the eve of the most important electoral deadline for our institutions, we call on all actors present on websites and social networks, first and foremost the media, but also all citizens, to show a spirit of responsibility and not relay the contents of these documents in order not to alter the integrity of the vote, not to break the bans laid down by the law and not to expose themselves to the committing of criminal offences.”

But Truthdig contributor Juan Cole argues that hackers will probably have little to no effect on the election results, while another known group certainly has. According to Cole, the terrorist group Islamic State has done more to put Le Pen at the head of France than any hackers could have.

— Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

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