Hacking arrest, fake news in tense French presidential race

ALBI, France -- Allegations of fake news and hacking attempts dominated France's tense presidential campaign Thursday, with just two days left for independent Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen to win over voters before this weekend's high-stakes runoff.

Paris prosecutors launched a preliminary investigation into whether fake news is being used to influence Sunday's vote, as front-runner Macron and populist Le Pen rallied thousands at their last big campaign events -- in opposite parts of the divided country.

There has been intense anxiety in France over the possibility viral misinformation or hackers could influence the presidential vote, as in the U.S. election last year.

Those fears largely have failed to materialize.

Then on Thursday, Macron's campaign filed suit against an unknown source "X" after Le Pen suggested during their only one-on-one debate the former banker could have an offshore account.

"I hope we won't find out you have an offshore account in the Bahamas," Le Pen said during the tense primetime showdown Wednesday night.

She appeared to be referring to two sets of apparent forgeries, published just hours earlier, that purported to show Macron somehow was involved with a Caribbean bank and a firm based on the island of Nevis.

Macron's camp said the former investment banker was the victim of a "cyber-misinformation campaign."

Speaking on France Inter radio, Macron blamed Le Pen for spreading "fake news" and said he never held a bank account "in any tax haven whatsoever."

"All this is factually inaccurate," Macron said.

In a subsequent twist, Le Pen's campaign said a far-left hacker was arrested this week and confessed to targeting its website repeatedly.

In a statement Thursday, the campaign gave few details about the seriousness of the interference, which could range from attempts at defacing the website to flooding it with bogus traffic.

Police referred questions to prosecutors, who wouldn't comment.

In a speech delivered late Thursday in a field in northern France, Le Pen made an emotional appeal to desperate farmers, the jobless and the disillusioned.

Painting herself as the "voice of the people," she said her rival would continue the painful status quo.

Macron, meanwhile, was on France's southern edge in the Pyrenees town of Albi, visiting disgruntled workers at a glass factory before holding his last campaign rally in which he called on voters from the left and right to choose his reformist, pro-European platform.

Macron pledged to "give strength back to the country" and "build a more efficient and fair society," speaking from an open-air stage in Albi's central square.