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President (2017–present) Contents
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Two days before the final vote in the 2017 French presidential elections, more than 20,000 e-mails related to the campaign of Emmanuel Macron were published on the internet. The leaks, dubbed MacronLeaks, garnered an abundance of media attention due to how quickly news of the leak spread throughout the Internet, aided in large part by bots and spammers [1] and drew accusations that the government of Russia under Vladimir Putin was responsible. The e-mails were shared by WikiLeaks and several American alt-right activists [2] through social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and 4chan. [3]
Originally posted on a filesharing site called PasteBin, the e-mails had little to no effect on the final vote as they were dumped just hours before a 44-hour media blackout that is legally required by French electoral law. [4]
The campaign said the e-mails had been "fraudulently obtained" and that false documents were mingled with genuine ones in order "to create confusion and misinformation." [5] [6] Numerama, an online publication focusing on digital life, described the leaked material as "utterly mundane", consisting of "the contents of a hard drive and several emails of co-workers and En Marche political officials." [7] United States Senator from Virginia, Mark Warner cited the e-mail leak as a reinforcement of the cause behind the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Nonetheless, the Russian government denied all allegations of foreign electoral intervention. [8]
After the first round of the 2017 French presidential election produced no majority winner, the top two candidates proceeded to a runoff election to be held on 7 May of that year. Emmanuel Macron of the En Marche! party and Marine Le Pen of the National Front both began campaigning across France on their competing points of view. [9] The election was characterized by widespread dissatisfaction with the administration of President François Hollande and the French governmental establishment as a whole. [10]
The election was widely regarded as a referendum between the internationalist centrism of Macron and the populist far-right ideology of Le Pen. After a slew of events considered to be detrimental to globalization and a triumph of nationalism and isolationism, such as the Brexit referendum, and the election of Donald Trump, many international observers viewed the French election as another possible trendsetting event for Western politics. [11] Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-NATO, and anti-European Union stances attracted her the widespread support of far-right politicians and activists as far as the United States, like Donald Trump, and raised questions about possible appeasement of Russia. [12] Russia-funded media outlets such as Russia Today and Sputnik News consistently portrayed Le Pen in a positive light[ according to whom? ][ vague ], and her campaign had even secured millions of Euros from a Russian lender in 2014. [13]
In the United States, Le Pen was praised by President Donald Trump on several occasions, [14] [15] and she saw widespread support and praise by large numbers of online conservative trolls and Internet alt-right activists on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and 4chan, who simultaneously attacked Macron. [16] These trolls used spamming of Internet memes and misinformation as tactics to assail Macron; accusing him of being a "globalist puppet" and a supporter of Islamic immigration. [17] This was not a new strategy, it had been executed to much success during the 2016 United States presidential election. Legions of pro-Trump Internet users and bots had spammed social media and rapidly spread anti-Clinton news releases and leaks across the web as was the case with the Democratic National Committee leaks and the John Podesta e-mail leaks, allegedly with aid from the Kremlin. [18] [19] [20] [21] Prior to the election, American national security officials warned the French government of the high probability of Russian digital meddling in the election, according to the Director of the National Security Agency, Mike Rogers. [22]
On Friday 5 May 2017, two days before the scheduled vote in the presidential election, the campaign of Emmanuel Macron claimed that it had been the target of a "massive hack". At the same time at least 9 gigabytes of data were dumped on an anonymous file sharing site called Pastebin using a profile called 'EMLEAKS'. [23] The drop was made just hours before an election media blackout was due to take place in advance of Sunday's elections, as legally mandated under French electoral law which prevented Macron from issuing an effective response but also limited media coverage of the hack and subsequent leak. [23] [24] The e-mails, totaling 21,075, along with other data was quickly posted to the anonymous message board, 4chan, where it was shared by alt-right activists, notably Jack Posobiec, on Twitter [25] who had them translated by the Québécois wing of right-wing outlet The Rebel Media . It has been remarked that at that time, Rebel Media's Québécois wing consisted solely of radio personality Éric Duhaime. [26]
The e-mail leak spread swiftly under the hashtag #MacronLeaks on Twitter and Facebook. Within three and a half hours of first being used, #MacronLeaks had reached 47,000 tweets. On Jack Posobiec's Twitter, the hashtag was retweeted 87 times within five minutes, likely pointing to the use of bots. WikiLeaks mentioned the leaks in subsequent tweets 15 times, contributing the most to the news' spread. Within a short period of time, #MacronLeaks was trending in France and was on a banner on the Drudge Report homepage. In another sign of bot use the ten most active accounts using the #MacronLeaks hashtag posted over 1,300 tweets in just over three hours. One particular account, posted 294 tweets in a span of two hours. Analysis shows that the hashtag was mentioned more times by American accounts than French ones, but posts concerning them were, by a slim margin, written more often in French than English. [27] [25]
The leaked e-mails were claimed to show evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Macron and his campaign including the committing of tax evasion and election fraud. [28] A less suggestive examination of the e-mails by Numerama, a French online publication focusing on technological news, described the leaked emails as "utterly mundane", consisting of "the contents of a hard drive and several emails of co-workers and En Marche political officials." Leaked documents included "memos, bills, loans for amounts that are hardly over-the-top, recommendations and other reservations, amidst, of course, exchanges that are strictly personal and private — personal notes on the rain and sunshine, a confirmation email for the publishing of a book, reservation of a table for friends, etc." [29]
In response to the attack, Emmanuel Macron said it was "democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States" and said the hackers had mixed falsified documents with genuine ones, "in order to sow doubt and disinformation." [30] Vice President of the National Front Florian Philippot and Le Pen adviser said in a tweet, "Will #MacronLeaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately killed?" [31] The French election commission warned media in the country that publishing the e-mails or discussing them so close to the election would be a violation of the law and issued a statement that in part read, "On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot." [32] The leak did not appear to have any impact on the French presidential election which continued as scheduled and ended with a Macron victory by a margin of 32%. [33] Despite this, French security officials commenced an investigation into the hacking shortly after the election. [34]
Shortly after the alt-right media boosted the leak, chief of Macron's campaign Mounir Mahjoubi stated that they have been watching GRU hacking attempts since February, and let them steal a carefully prepared cache of trivial and forged documents. After this was confirmed against the leaks contents, its credibility was seriously undermined. [35] [36]
In the United States, U.S. Senator from Virginia and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner said the hacking and subsequent leak only emboldened his committee's investigation, and former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said in a tweet, "Victory for Macron, for France, the EU, & the world. Defeat to those interfering w/democracy. (But the media says I can't talk about that)." [37]
An assessment by Flashpoint, an American cybersecurity firm, stated that they determined with "moderate confidence" that the group behind the hacking and leak was APT28, better known as 'Fancy Bear', a hacking group with ties to Russian military intelligence. Metadata pulled from the dump revealed the name 'Georgy Petrovich Roshka', likely an alias, which has ties to a Moscow-based intelligence contractor. Many similarities, including the use of social media bots in an attempt to scrub metadata, also pointed to Fancy Bear. [38] However, on 1 June 2017, Guillaume Poupard, the head of France's premier cybersecurity agency said in an interview with the Associated Press the hack, "was so generic and simple that it could have been practically anyone". [39] On 9 May, two days after the election, Mike Rogers, head of the NSA, said in sworn testimony with the United States Senate he had been made aware of Russian attempts to hack French election infrastructure, [40] though he did not mention anything related to the identities of those behind the Macron email hacking. This followed a French announcement that electronic voting for France's overseas citizens would be discontinued in light of cybersecurity threats. [41]
According to the Le Monde newspaper and with the work based on non-public rapport of Google and FireEye, the GRU is responsible. [42]
Vladimir Putin has denied claims of election interference, claiming Russia has also been targeted. [43]
The National Rally, known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018, is a French far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and nationalist. It is the single largest parliamentary opposition party in the National Assembly since 2022. Its candidate was defeated in the second round in the 2002, 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. It opposes immigration, advocating significant cuts to legal immigration, protection of French identity, and stricter control of illegal immigration. The party advocates a "more balanced" and "independent" French foreign policy, opposing French military intervention in Africa while supporting France leaving NATO's integrated command. It also supports reform of the European Union (EU) and its related organisations as well as economic interventionism, protectionism, and zero tolerance for breaches of law and order.
Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen is a French lawyer and politician who ran for the French presidency in 2012, 2017, and 2022. A member of the National Rally, she served as its president from 2011 to 2021. She has been the member of the National Assembly for the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais since 2017. She currently serves as parliamentary party leader of the National Rally in the Assembly, a position she has held since June 2022.
Presidential elections were held in France on 23 April and 7 May 2017. Incumbent president François Hollande of the Socialist Party (PS) was eligible to run for a second term, but declared on 1 December 2016 that he would not seek reelection in light of low approval ratings, making him the first incumbent head of state of the Fifth Republic not to seek reelection. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held between the top two candidates, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! (EM) and Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN), which Macron won with a difference of more than 30% of the vote.
Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron is a French politician who has been the 25th and current president of France since 2017 and ex officio one of the two co-princes of Andorra. He previously was Minister of Economics, Industry and Digital Affairs under President François Hollande from 2014 to 2016 and Deputy Secretary-General to the President from 2012 to 2014. He has been a member of Renaissance since he founded it in 2016.
The Republicans is a liberal-conservative political party in France, largely inspired by the tradition of Gaullism. The party was formed in 2015 as the refoundation of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which had been established in 2002 under the leadership of then-President of France, Jacques Chirac.
Fancy Bear is a Russian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has said with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as security firms SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and Mandiant, have also said the group is sponsored by the Russian government. In 2018, an indictment by the United States Special Counsel identified Fancy Bear as GRU Unit 26165. This refers to its unified Military Unit Number of the Russian army regiments. The headquarters of Fancy Bear and the entire military unit, which reportedly specializes in state-sponsored cyberattacks and decryption of hacked data, were targeted by Ukrainian drones on July 24, 2023, the rooftop on an adjacent building collapsed as a result of the explosion.
The Democratic National Committee cyber attacks took place in 2015 and 2016, in which two groups of Russian computer hackers infiltrated the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network, leading to a data breach. Cybersecurity experts, as well as the U.S. government, determined that the cyberespionage was the work of Russian intelligence agencies.
The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" who are alleged to be Russian intelligence agency hackers, according to indictments carried out by the Mueller investigation. These emails were subsequently leaked by DCLeaks in June and July 2016 and by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members dating from January 2015 to May 2016. On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection. The emails and documents showed that the Democratic Party's national committee favored Hillary Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries. These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been cited as a potential contributing factor to her loss in the general election against Donald Trump.
"Guccifer 2.0" is a persona which claimed to be the hacker(s) who gained unauthorized access to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and then leaked its documents to the media, the website WikiLeaks, and a conference event. Some of the documents "Guccifer 2.0" released to the media appear to be forgeries cobbled together from public information and previous hacks, which had been mixed with disinformation. According to indictments in February 2018, the persona is operated by Russian military intelligence agency GRU. On July 13, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU agents for allegedly perpetrating the cyberattacks.
DCLeaks was a website that was established in June 2016. It was responsible for publishing leaks of emails belonging to multiple prominent figures in the United States government and military. Cybersecurity research firms determined the site is a front for the Russian cyber-espionage group Fancy Bear. On July 13, 2018, an indictment was made against 12 Russian GRU military officers; it alleged that DCLeaks is part of a Russian military operation to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In March 2016, the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, was compromised in a data breach accomplished via a spear-phishing attack, and some of his emails, many of which were work-related, were hacked. Cybersecurity researchers as well as the United States government attributed responsibility for the breach to the Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear, allegedly two units of a Russian military intelligence agency.
Renaissance (RE) is a political party in France that is typically described as liberal and centrist or centre-right. The party was originally known as En Marche ! (EM) and later La République En Marche !, before adopting its current name in September 2022. RE is the leading force of the centrist Ensemble coalition, coalesced around Emmanuel Macron's original presidential majority.
The Russian government conducted foreign electoral interference in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
Presidential elections were held in France on 10 and 24 April 2022. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held, in which Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen and was re-elected as President of France. Macron, from La République En Marche! (LREM), had defeated Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, once already in the 2017 French presidential election, for the term which expired on 13 May 2022. Macron became the first president of France to win a re-election bid since Jacques Chirac won in 2002.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Jack Michael Posobiec III is an American alt-right political activist, television correspondent and presenter, conspiracy theorist, and former United States Navy intelligence officer.
Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections is a report issued by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that assessed the extent and basis of Russia's interference in United States' elections in 2016. Published on January 6, 2017, the report includes an assessment by the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the type and breadth of actions undertaken by Russia and affiliated elements during the elections. The report examines Russia's utilization of cyberspace such as hacking and the use of internet trolls and bots, and an intensive media campaign to influence public opinion in the United States. Additionally, it analyzes Russia's intentions and motivations in regards to their influence campaign. Issued in two forms, a classified version and a declassified version, the report drew its conclusions based on highly classified intelligence, an understanding of past Russian actions, and sensitive sources and methods.
The tenure of Emmanuel Macron as the 25th president of France began with his inauguration on 14 May 2017. Macron, the founding member of Renaissance, began his first term as president following his victory over National Rally nominee Marine Le Pen in the 2017 French presidential election and began his second term as president after defeating Le Pen again in the 2022 French presidential election. Upon his inauguration, he became the youngest president in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon at 39.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, sorted by topics. It also includes events described in investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. Those investigations continued in 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and 2019, largely as parts of the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation, the Special Counsel investigation, multiple ongoing criminal investigations by several State Attorneys General, and the investigation resulting in the Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.