France: Cyber experts ‘99% sure’ Russian hackers are targeting Macron | France 24

The Russian cyber-spying group Pawn Storm (also known as Fancy Bear) has targeted French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron, according to Japanese cyber-security experts. Macron campaign officials, however, say the group has so far failed. Barely two weeks before the critical second round of the French presidential election, fears of Russian meddling in the 2017 campaign mounted with the publication of a report accusing Pawn Storm of targeting Macron’s En Marche! (Forward!) movement, employing identical tactics used to attack the Hillary Clinton campaign during the US presidential race. A 41-page report, “Two Years of Pawn Storm,” by the Japanese cyber-security firm Trend Micro detailed a long list of the group’s targets, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party ahead of the September German general elections.

France: This Is the Evidence Linking Russian Hackers to the French Election | Motherboard

As France braces for the second round of its election, security researchers try to figure out if Russia was really behind the alleged hacking attempts against frontrunner Emmanuel Macron. After months of speculation on whether dreaded Russian hackers would try to meddle with the French elections the same way they did last year in America, cybersecurity researchers finally pointed the finger earlier this week.

France: Cyberattack on French presidential front-runner bears Russian ‘fingerprints,’ research group says | The Washington Post

A security firm claimed Tuesday that a new cyberattack against the campaign offices of the front-runner in France’s presidential race carried similar digital “fingerprints” to the suspected Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and others. The report, released by the Trend Micro research group, did not disclose what possible fallout the infiltration had on the campaign of Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who is in a two-person runoff with far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the May 7 election. But if a Russian connection was proved, the hacking would add to mounting allegations of Moscow-backed attempts to influence Western elections in favor of candidates with policies potentially more favorable to the Kremlin. Le Pen has voiced opposition to the powers of the European Union and has called for better ties with Russia, echoing some of the campaign rhetoric of President Trump.

France: Right-wing Le Pen claims victory alongside centrist Macron for French presidential runoff, with EU future at stake | The Washington Post

An anti-immigrant firebrand and an unconventional centrist were set Sunday to advance to a runoff in a tight race for France’s president, according to exit polls released immediately after balloting closed. If confirmed, the results set up a sharp confrontation between those who embrace globalization and those who want to roll it back. Centrist Emmanuel Macron placed first and far-right leader Marine Le Pen placed second in initial exit polls in the first round of France’s presidential election, advancing them to a head-to-head showdown in the runoff on May 7. It was poised to be a historic wipeout for the two political parties that have traded power in post-World War II France, with neither the Socialists nor the center-right descendants of Charles de Gaulle having a shot at the presidency. Center-right candidate Francois Fillon, a former front-runner, conceded defeat shortly after the exit polls were released, calling for patriotic French citizens to unite behind Macron to defeat Le Pen, whose party he said was known for “violence and intolerance.” The victor could determine whether the international alliances that formed the backbone of the post-World War II West strengthen or are shattered by the force of nationalism.

France: ‘We don’t need a third shock’: French expats flock to vote in UK and US | The Guardian

After more than two hours in a queue that snaked for more than a mile round the cosseted streets of South Kensington, Jérémy, 36, was finally nearing the voting booth – and still was not sure for which candidate he would cast his ballot. Who are the leading candidates in the French presidential election? With his two-year-old son Ernest in a pushchair, the engineer from Guildford said he had followed the campaign closely on French media but was still hesitating. Would it be the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, or the hard-left veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon? “It all feels new this time around,” he said. “Elections used to be all about left and right. This is between the centre and the extremes, continuity or change, Europe or not Europe. There are good elements in both programmes … I just don’t know. Angel, or demon?”

France: It’s France’s Turn to Worry About Election Meddling by Russia | The New York Times

The flagging, scandal-plagued presidential campaign of François Fillon — a former prime minister of France much liked by the Kremlin but not so much, it seems, by French voters — received a surprise lift late last month with a report that he had staged a remarkable recovery in opinion polls and was now leading the pack ahead of voting this Sunday. “The Return of Fillon to the Head of Opinion Polls,” declared the bold headline, contradicting other French polls suggesting that the onetime favorite had fallen to third or even fourth place as he battled corruption charges. As it happens, Mr. Fillon’s lead in the polls existed only in a world of alternative facts shared by the French-language service of Sputnik, a state-funded Russian news operation with the motto “Telling the Untold.

France: How Russia hacked the French election | Politico.eu

Since the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Moscow waged an influence campaign targeting the 2016 U.S. elections, experts have asked: Will it do the same in the French and German elections? Both votes will have an enormous impact on the future of Europe and the liberal order, and much is weighing on whether these democracies are adequately shielded from outside manipulation. In fact, Moscow has already interfered in French elections. In 1974, the KGB launched a covert propaganda campaign to discredit both François Mitterrand and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Overtly, Moscow courted Giscard, to an extent that papers such as the right-wing L’Aurore condemned it as an “intolerable” insertion into French domestic politics. Correspondents interpreted the move as “open intervention in national politics.”

France: Experts say automated accounts sharing fake news ahead of French election | Reuters

French voters are being deluged with false stories on social media ahead of the country’s presidential election, though the onslaught of “junk news” is not as severe as that during last year’s U.S. presidential campaign, according to a study by Oxford University researchers. The study to be published Friday and another published on Wednesday add evidence to complaints by officials in France, Germany and the United States that Russia is trying to replicate its cyber-powered election meddling in American politics. Just days before France votes in the first round of a presidential election, the study said misinformation at times has accounted for one-quarter of the political links shared on Twitter in France. It defined “junk news” as deliberately false stories and those expressing “ideologically extreme, hyper-partisan or conspiratorial” views with logical flaws and opinions passed along as facts.

France: Thwarted Attack Rattles France Days Before Presidential Vote | Associated Press

Extremism concerns shook France’s presidential campaign Tuesday as authorities announced arrests in what they said was a thwarted attack and candidates urged tougher counterterrorism efforts for a country already under a state of emergency. While national security previously has been a strong theme in the campaign, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen hardened her tone on foreign extremists and border controls in the wake of the arrests that came days before the first round of voting. Centrist Emmanuel Macron called for national unity and stronger intelligence. Le Pen and Macron are among four leading candidates seen as most likely to progress from Sunday’s first round and to reach the May 7 runoff between the top two. As the government prepared to flood streets with more than 50,000 police and soldiers to safeguard the ballot, Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said police thwarted an imminent “terror attack,” arresting two French men in the southern port city of Marseille.

France: Facebook targets 30,000 fake France accounts before election | Associated Press

Facebook says it has targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country’s presidential election, as part of a worldwide effort against misinformation. The company said Thursday it’s trying to “reduce the spread of material generated through inauthentic activity, including spam, misinformation, or other deceptive content that is often shared by creators of fake accounts.” It said its efforts “enabled us to take action” against the French accounts and that it is removing sites with the highest traffic. Facebook and French media are also running fact-checking programs in France to combat misleading information, especially around the campaign for the two-round April 23-May 7 presidential election.

France: Presidential election launches with an unprecedented choice of 11 candidates | Los Angeles Times

For voters, it is a case of plus ça change — same-old-same-old — after four months during which the leadership battle has dominated the headlines as it veered from scandal to scandal. France’s presidential election campaign was launched Monday, two weeks before the first round that sees voters faced with an unprecedented choice of 11 candidates. The official opening of the race means all runners, major or minor, must be given the same airtime on television and radio and the same poster space on the municipal billboards. With two weeks to go, two of the front-runners are under investigation for fraud, and the traditional socialist and conservative parties who have governed France for more than 50 years are struggling to remain in the race.

France: Spectre of Russian influence looms large over French election | The Guardian

The golden domes of one of Vladimir Putin’s foreign projects, the recently built Russian Holy Trinity cathedral in the heart of Paris, rise up not far from the Elysée palace, the seat of the French presidency. Dubbed “Putin’s cathedral” or “Saint-Vladimir”, it stands out as a symbol of the many connections the French elite has long nurtured with Russia, and which the Kremlin is actively seeking to capitalise on in the run-up to the French presidential election. France is an important target for Russia’s soft power and networks of influence. The country is a key pillar of the European Union, an important Nato member and home to Europe’s largest far-right party, the Front National, whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is expected to reach the 7 May run-off in the presidential vote and has benefited from Russian financing.

France: French polling watchdog warns over Russian news agency’s election report | The Guardian

France’s polling commission has issued a warning over a Russian news report suggesting conservative candidate François Fillon leads the race for the presidency, contradicting the findings of mainstream opinion polls. The cautionary note from the watchdog followed allegations in February by aides of centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron that he was a target of “fake news” put out by Russian media, including the Sputnik news agency. Macron takes a hard line on European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, whereas Fillon has said they are totally ineffective, creating a “cold war” climate that needs to be reversed. Almost all media in France are drawing on polls that have shown since mid-February that Fillon, a former prime minister, is trailing in third place behind Macron and the Front National candidate, Marine Le Pen, for the 23 April first round. Third place would mean Fillon’s elimination from the 7 May runoff.

France: Concerns of Russian meddling loom over French election | AFP

Russia looms large over France’s presidential election, with candidates on the hard left, right and far right all promising to improve ties with the Kremlin, accused by some of meddling in the vote. As U.S. authorities press their investigation into alleged Russian interference in favor of Donald Trump in America’s election, officials on both sides of the Atlantic are warning of possible attempts by Russia to also sway the French vote. This week, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence outright accused Russia of an “overt effort” to disrupt France’s April 23-May 7 vote. “I think it’s safe by everybody’s judgment that the Russians are actively involved in the French elections,” Sen. Richard Burr told reporters.

France: Russia ‘actively involved’ in French election, warns US Senate intelligence chief | AFP

Senator Richard Burr, who has access to some of the most highly classified US intelligence, said Moscow has shown a clear will and ability to disrupt elections in Western democracies. “What we might assess was a very covert effort in 2016 in the United States, is a very overt effort, as well as covert, in Germany and France,” he told reporters. “I remind you that we’re within 30 days of the first French election, with four candidates. It will go down to two candidates with a runoff in May,” he said. “I think it’s safe by everybody’s judgment that the Russians are actively involved in the French elections.”

France: Le Pen says lacks election funds, has no Russian backing | Reuters

French far right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said on Monday she had yet to secure all the funding she needs for her election campaign with less than four weeks to go before voting begins. The National Front leader, who is running in second place in the presidential race according to opinion polls, repeated her complaint that French banks were refusing to lend her money. Speaking on Europe 1 radio after a visit last week to Moscow where she met President Vladimir Putin, she said she did not have any financial backing from Russia, nor from any Russian financial institution, but that she was trying to get a loan from a foreign bank. “I have to,” she said. “I’m prevented from borrowing from French banks so now I am being told off for asking for a loan from a foreign bank. What am I supposed to do? … The French banks have lent to all the presidential candidates except for me.”

France: Le Pen Visits Putin Amid Fears of Russian Interference in French Vote | Fortune

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen dropped in on Russia’s Vladimir Putin for a chat Friday, in a move that once again stoked the argument over Russian influence in Western politics. According to her Twitter account, the two “discussed at length the international situation and Islamist terror,” as well as “the fate of eastern Christians, who are threatened every day by Islamist fundamentalists.” Le Pen, who is currently tipped to win the first round of the French presidential elections at the end of April, is politically closest to Putin out of all the candidates running—with a platform of nationalism, euro-skepticism and a hard line on Islamist terror and immigration that her opponents decry as racist.

France: Le Pen visits Russia ahead of French presidential election | AFP

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was due in Moscow on Friday for meetings with lawmakers less than a month before a presidential election clouded by allegations of Russian interference. The leader of the National Front, an anti-immigrant and anti-European Union party, is seeking to bolster her international credentials ahead of the two-round French election on April 23 and May 7. Her visit comes on the heels of a trip this week to Chad, base of a French military operation that’s aimed at rooting out Islamic extremists from a swath of Africa. The head of the Russian Duma’s international affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, was quoted by the Tass news agency as saying Le Pen would hold meetings on the “international agenda such as the war on terrorism”.

France: Google Launches ‘Protect Your Election’ Tool Before French Vote | Fortune

As worries mount about cyberthreats to democracy, Google on Tuesday announced the launch of a free set of tools to help election websites, human rights groups, and other parties defend their computer systems from attacks. The arrival of the toolkit, known as “Protect Your Election,” comes as France prepares to go to the polls next month, and a week after hackers took down one of the Netherlands’ leading election information sites during that country’s vote last week, according to Google, citing local media. “Unfortunately, these types of attacks are becoming easier, cheaper, more better organized. With national elections approaching in France, we want to do our part to help,” said a blog post signed by staffers from Google France and from Jigsaw, the policy arm of Google’s (GOOGL, -2.05%) parent company, Alphabet.

France: Election under high cyber threat | EUObserver

French authorities are on high alert to head off a cyber-attack that could affect the result of the upcoming presidential election.
Prime targets could be candidates’ websites and government networks. The threat was publicly recognised by president Francois Hollande, who accused Russia of trying to interfere in the campaign, ahead of the first round on 23 April and a run-off on 7 May. “Russia is using all of its means to influence public opinion,” he said in a recent interview to several European newspapers. “It is not the same ideology as in the time of the USSR, [but] it is sometimes the same methods, with more technology,” he said, adding that Russia had “a strategy of influence, of networks, with very conservative moral views”. … In early March, the government decided to ban electronic voting in June’s legislative elections for French voters abroad. Electronic voting was not planned for the presidential election itself.

France: Fillon banks on voter anger over ‘stolen’ election | AFP

French rightwing presidential candidate Francois Fillon said on Wednesday (Mar 15) he had the backing of angry voters after being charged with misusing public money, as scandals rather than policy continue to dominate the campaign. “There’s been a manipulation of events against me with one objective: to stop me being a candidate in the presidential election,” Fillon told Radio Classique, again denying allegations his wife was paid from public funds for a fake job. “There’s a very strong movement going on. There’s anger among voters on the right and in the centre who don’t want to see their election stolen.” The comments came as new problems piled up for the presidential contenders, with almost daily revelations in the press and fresh legal investigations creating a cloud of suspicion overhanging the two-round vote in April and May.

France: Government withdraws electronic vote over hacking fears | IT PRO

The French government has advised citizens living abroad that they won’t be able to vote electronically in the upcoming parliamentary elections due to fears of hacking. Over the course of the past week, French voters living abroad have been receiving emails from the French Foreign Ministry stating: “Due to the very high risk of cyber-attacks, the French authorities have decided, on the advice of the National Agency for Information Security, not to allow electronic voting for the parliamentary elections of June 2017.” No further information has been provided as to whether a specific risk has been identified and, IT Pro understands that even though the alert first went out on 6 March, not all those affected have been contacted so far. There are 1,611,054 French nationals living abroad, according to France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development. … The upcoming French presidential elections, which begin on 23 April, aren’t affected, however, as electronic voting isn’t an option.

France: Insurgents Thrust Establishment Aside in Crucial Vote | Bloomberg

The old order is fading in France. Every election since Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic more than half a century ago has seen at least one of the major parties in the presidential runoff and most have featured both. With Republicans and Socialists consumed by infighting and voters thoroughly fed up, polls suggest that neither will make it this year. For the past month, survey after survey has projected a decider between Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old rookie who doesn’t even have a party behind him, and Marine Le Pen, who’s been ostracized throughout her career because of her party’s history of racism.

France: Election beset by criminal investigations and fake news | Slate

Former Prime Minister Alain Juppé’s announcement Monday that he has decided “once and for all” not to enter the French presidential race makes it very likely that neither the center-left nor the center-right will have a candidate in the second-round runoff vote in May, an unprecedented development in modern French politics. Juppé lost a Republican Party primary to François Fillon, another former PM, in November, but supporters had been urging him to get back in the race as Fillon’s campaign has imploded over an ongoing corruption allegation. Fillon, who had billed himself as the candidate of morality and traditional values, allegedly arranged no-show jobs for his wife and two of his children, with French taxpayers picking up the bill, and faces possible corruption charges, but so far refuses to withdraw.

France: Insurgents Thrust Establishment Aside in Crucial Vote | Bloomberg

The old order is fading in France. Every election since Charles de Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic more than half a century ago has seen at least one of the major parties in the presidential runoff and most have featured both. With Republicans and Socialists consumed by infighting and voters thoroughly fed up, polls suggest that neither will make it this year. For the past month, survey after survey has projected a decider between Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old rookie who doesn’t even have a party behind him, and Marine Le Pen, who’s been ostracized throughout her career because of her party’s history of racism. “We’ve gone as far as we can go with a certain way of doing politics,” said Brice Teinturier, head of the Ipsos polling company and author of a book on voters’ disillusionment. “Everyone feels the system is blocked.”

France: Electronic voting for citizens abroad dropped over cybersecurity fears | Reuters

France’s government has dropped plans to let its citizens abroad vote electronically in legislative elections in June because of concern about the risk of cyber attacks, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday. The National Cybersecurity Agency believed there was an “extremely high risk” of cyber attacks. “In that light, it was decided that it would be better to take no risk that might jeopardize the legislative vote for French citizens residing abroad,” the ministry said in a statement. Concern about foreign interference in western elections has surged amid allegations of Russian hacking – which Moscow denies – in the U.S. presidential ballot.

France: Moscow Behind High-Level Attacks, Emmanuel Macrons Aide Claims | International Business Times

After allegedly targeting the U.S. election, Russia may hack into the French elections with continued “high-level attacks” and its state-sponsored media spreading fake news, presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s digital campaign manager told Sky News on Sunday. French voters conduct the first round of balloting for president April 23, followed by a May 7 runoff between the top two candidates. “We are accusing Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News (of being) the first source of false information shared about our candidate and all the other symbiotic ways of working with all these fascist organizations or extreme right news organizations,” Mounir Mahjoubi said. “At the same time, during the same period, with the same rhythm, we are the victim, the target of hackers on our servers. … We have been the targets of multiple attempts of hacking but we succeeded to stop all of them.”

France: ‘Oui on peut!’ French voters want Obama to run for president | France 24

Posters of Barack Obama have popped up around Paris in what started as a joke by four friends calling for the former US president to run for the Élysée Palace. The organisers say they began plastering Obama posters around Paris because they were disenchanted with the homegrown candidates in France’s forthcoming presidential election. While the posters read “Oui on peut”, the French translation of Obama’s “Yes we can” slogan, the US president cannot run in France’s presidential election as a foreigner. And yet more than 42,000 people have already signed an online petition linked to the poster campaign, calling for the 44th US president to become the 25th president of the French Republic.

France: Thousands Sign Petition to Put Obama on French Presidential Ballot | VoA News

Hurrying home from work, Noellie Benison paused to take in the grinning poster of the former U.S. president, flanking a busy meridian in northern Paris. “Obama 2017,” she read out. Below: the French translation of his famous tagline, “Oui, on peut” — “Yes we can.” “If Obama runs, I’ll vote for him, that’s for sure,” said 55-year-old Benison, who is planning to cast a blank ballot in this spring’s presidential vote. “We’ve lost our confidence,” she added, dismissing the current crop of candidates. “They’re all the same.” What started as a joke over beers by a quartet of Parisians in their 30s has made international news in less than a week. Today, Obama2017.fr – an online petition to put Barack Obama on the French ballot, has received 50,000 signatures, its organizers say.

France: Is Putin supporting Le Pen to bring about the end of the EU? | Sky News

Russia’s meddling in the US election is well documented. It is now accused of doing the same in France. France is a more important target for Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader abhors the idea of blocs of countries acting together. Multi-national groupings like the EU give their members a combined clout he cannot match leading a country whose economy is no bigger than Italy’s. It makes sense for Mr Putin to seek the break-up of the European Union. His intervention in the US elections helped bring to power a man who championed Brexit and whose rhetoric undermines the EU. Mr Putin knows Marine Le Pen can helped deliver his strategic goals in Europe. The far-right French presidential candidate has threatened to pull France out of the eurozone and a hold referendum on EU membership. Many economists doubt the single European currency can survive the former and predict an ensuing economic catastrophe across Europe. The EU is also unlikely to remain intact if a majority of French people voted for a Frexit.