Updated May 06, 2017 19:23:44

Photo: Emmanuel Macron's team had blamed Russian interests in part for cyber attacks. (Reuters: Stephane Mahe)

A large trove of emails from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has been posted online just days before voters go to the polls to choose the country's next leader in a run-off against far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

About nine gigabytes of data was posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for posting the data.

In a statement, Mr Macron's political movement En Marche confirmed it had been hacked.

"The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening, which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information," the statement said.

If the US example is any guide and Marine Le Pen wins the election in a Trump-style upset, months from now the French people may ask how Vladimir Putin was involved.

En Marche said the documents released online only showed the normal functioning of a presidential campaign, but authentic documents had been mixed on social media with "false documents" to sow "doubt and misinformation".

"The seriousness of this event is certain and we shall not tolerate that the vital interests of democracy be put at risk," it added.

National Front candidate Ms Le Pen said her campaign had also been targeted but no documents appear to have been posted.

An interior ministry official declined to comment, citing French rules which forbid any commentary liable to influence an election, and which took effect at midnight (local time) on Friday and is due to stay in place until the last polling stations close.

However, the French electoral commission, which supervises the presidential campaign, has released a statement warning media outlets not to republish the hacked information.

The commission said that the publication or republication of the information could be a criminal offence.

Comments about the email dump began to appear on Friday evening — just hours before the official ban on campaigning began.

Macron's team pointed finger at Russians

Mr Macron's team has already complained about attempts to hack its systems during a fraught campaign, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks.

The stylish former investment banker and political newcomer has shocked pundits and is now a serious contender for France's presidency.

On April 26, the team said it had been the target of a series of attempts to steal email credentials since January, but the perpetrators had so far failed to compromise any campaign data.

The "digital fingerprints" of hacking group Pawn Storm — a Moscow-linked group US authorities believe hacked the Democratic National Committee's computers last year — were last week linked to 160 attacks on Mr Macron's email server and website.

In February, the Kremlin denied that it was behind any such attacks, even though Mr Macron's camp renewed charges against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine.

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There have also been claims of a widespread campaign of "fake news" with articles from state-backed Russian media translated into French being spread on social media.

Ms Le Pen is trailing 20 points in the final opinion polls, with pollsters tipping independent centrist Mr Macron to win 60-40 in Sunday's second round of voting.

But she still believes she can pull off a surprise win and claimed an "ideological victory" for her populist, anti-immigration worldview, which has dominated a contest that could change Europe's direction.

ABC/wires

Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, hacking, france

First posted May 06, 2017 09:40:14