French media warned not to publish Emmanuel Macron leaks

France’s electoral commission warned media and internet users that they could face criminal prosecution for publishing documents obtained in a “massive and coordinated hacking attack” on the presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron’s political movement.

Le Monde said it had seen part of the documents. It said the hacking attack was “clearly aimed at disturbing the current electoral process”. The paper said it would not publish the content of any pirated document before the second round vote was over and the results known at 8pm on Sunday.

About 9GB of data was posted by a user called EMLEAKS to the document-sharing site Pastebin, which allows anonymous posting. It was not immediately clear who was responsible.