Saturday 6 May 2017

Wiping the slate clean


You would have had to listen to BBC radio this morning or consult the websites of The Guardian or Le Monde to learn that after repeated attempts to hack the Macron campaign’s email during the past few weeks, a number of documents, some of them apparently compromising for the candidate himself, have been circulating on the social media in the past few hours via Wikileaks. As the campaign officially closed at midnight on Friday, the French mainstream radio and TV stations, we are told by Le Monde, have been advised not to report on these events as they could influence Sunday’s vote. The Macron camp is saying that the leaked documents are both real and fake in a deliberate attempt to confuse and mislead.

In the detailed report on the BBC’s Today programme this morning, Russian hackers were said to be responsible and a parallel was drawn with the similar hacking of the email of Hilary Clinton’s campaign manager a few days before the U.S presidential election last November.

We shall no doubt find out more on Monday. For the moment, on the two remaining elections hoardings outside the primary school where I shall be voting tomorrow, the posters of the two candidates have been torn to the ground and rain has reduced them to a mushy pulp.

It is almost as if the slate has been wiped clean for the new departure in France’s political life that will be revealed on Sunday evening at 8pm.

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