France chooses its next president from outside the establishment

DEBKAfile was founded by a team of journalists in June 2000 as an independent Internet Web site, providing an intelligence and security news service. May 6, 2017, 10:21 PM (IDT)

The two candidates contesting the presidential runoff Sunday are political outsiders. Having rejected the Socialist and Republican parties, French voters choose Sunday between the centrist 39-year old Emanuel Macron, a former investment banker, who would strengthen France’s integration in the European Union and the eurozone, and the far-right Marine Le Pen, 48, who would take France out of the EU and expel foreigners who are on the watch lists of intelligence services. Both pledge to change the system in radically different ways; neither has any experience in national elected office or a support base in parliament.
On election eve, Macron announced his campaign had been massively targeted by hackers after a shower of documents were leaked on online, some real some fake. The government ordered the media to black out their contents, but the leaks appeared on social media.

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