>
Article snippet: PARIS — French readers awoke on Monday to headlines about its young president-elect, Emmanuel Macron, and his decisive defeat of the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. What they did not find were details of the “massive” hacking attack on the Macron campaign that was announced late Friday night. The hacking occurred just before the start of a 44-hour ban on campaigning and broadcast media coverage of the election, lifted only when the final polling stations closed on Sunday night, and some Macron supporters initially feared that his inability to respond could be devastating on the eve of voting. News of the hacking lit up social media, especially in the United States, where the attack echoed one on the Democratic National Committee last year, and where far-right activists have joined together to spread extremist messages in Europe. But in France, the leak did not get much traction. It certainly did not appear to give an edge to Ms. Le Pen, who won 33.9 percent to Mr. Macron’s 66.1 percent on Sunday. The hacking operation was met, instead, with silence, disdain and even scorn. Why? First, French news outlets respected the blackout. The documents landed at the 11th hour, without time for journalists to scrutinize them properly before the ban went into effect. Second, the news media heeded an admonition by the government’s campaign regulatory body not to publish false news. The Macron campaign said that fake documents had been mixed in with authentic ones. But ther... Link to the full article to read more