U. S. Far-Right Activists Promote Hacking Attack Against Macron -
By MARK SCOTTMAY 6, 2017
After months of trying to move the political needle in favor of Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, American far-right activists on Saturday threw
their weight behind a hacking attack against her rival, Emmanuel Macron, hoping to cast doubt on an election that is pivotal to France and the wider world.
In response, Mr. Macron’s team said the hackers had included fake information alongside authentic material “to sow doubt.”
“Intervening in the final hour of the official campaign, this operation is clearly a matter of democratic destabilization, as was seen in the United States during
the last presidential campaign,” Mr. Macron’s campaign said in a statement late Friday, minutes before the communications prohibition went into effect.
Within hours after the hacked documents were made public, the hashtag #MacronLeaks began trending worldwide,
aided by far-right activists in the United States who have been trying to sway the vote in favor of Ms.
Jack Posobiec, a journalist with the far-right news outlet The Rebel, was the first to use the hashtag
with a link to the hacked documents online, which was then shared more widely by WikiLeaks.
While there is no evidence that the breach against Mr. Macron’s campaign was organized by this loosely connected group of far-right campaigners, the American activists have been gathering on sites like 4chan
and Discord, which were previously used to coordinate support for Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.
