France slams Russian ‘interference’ in presidential campaign
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has condemned alleged Russian cyberattacks targeting the presidential campaign in France, describing them as “unacceptable.”
A spokesman for the French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has claimed that Russia carried out a series of cyberattacks on the candidate’s email servers and campaign website over the past month.
Foreign Minister Ayrault condemned the alleged attacks in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday.
While no evidence has been provided to prove that Russia conducted cyberattacks, the French foreign minister suggested that Moscow carried out the hacking because it would like to see pro-Europe Macron lose.
“It’s enough to see which candidates — Marine Le Pen... [and] Francois Fillon — Russia expresses preference for in the French electoral campaign... whereas Emmanuel Macron, who is pro-Europe, is being targeted by cyberattacks,” Ayrault said in the interview.
“This form of interference in the French democratic life is unacceptable and I denounce it,” he said.
Among the three candidates named, Macron is currently riding higher in the polls.
Russia has not commented on the allegations by France yet. It has previously been accused by the United States of meddling in that country’s presidential election, which was held last year. A report by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) purported that Russia had hacked the computers of some Democratic organizations to gain access to and leak information that would potentially tilt the election results in favor of the then-Republican candidate and now-President Donald Trump. Moscow has dismissed the US claims.
Le Pen, a far-right politician known for her extremist positions, is sometimes described as France’s Trump.
In a separate development last week, the website WikiLeaks published a seven-page document indicating that the CIA had ordered its spies to gather information on the 2012 French presidential election.
The document said that American spies sought information such as details of party funding, internal rivalries, and potential future attitudes toward the US.
The CIA has declined to comment on the leaks.
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