Emmanuel Macron's wife was mobbed by his supporters outside their home - as authorities battle to stop his leaked emails from damaging the election.

Brigitte Trogneux met with her husband's fans at the entrance of their home in Le Touquet, northeastern France, the day before the country goes to the polls.

Nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, an anonymous document-sharing site, four minutes before the legal prohibition on campaigning was put in place.

The election commission, which supervises the electoral process, warned media outlets not to publish the emails to ensure they do not influence the vote.

Brigitte Trogneux stands at the entrance as people gather in front of their home in Le Touquet, northeastern France

The wife of French presidential election candidate for the En Marche! movement Emmanuel Macron, carries one of her grandchildren

Crowds were eager to catch glimpse of the would-be First Lady of France, with the presidential vote taking place tomorrow

A large trove of emails purporting to be from Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign was posted online tonight

Crowds gathered in front of the home of the French presidential election candidate a day before voters go to the polls

A commission statement said: '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.

'The commission stresses that publication or republication of these data...could be a criminal offence.'

Mr Macron announced Russian hackers launched a 'massive and coordinated' bid to destabilise his campaign at 1.56 pm, just four minutes before a ban on media reports liable to affect the presidential race.

En Marche! said that several of its leaders had their emails hacked last week but the attackers bundled them with fake emails and delayed posting them for maximum effect.

French citizens wait in line to vote, at College Stanislas in Montreal, Canada, on Saturday

A woman signs a voters' register during the second round of the presidential election at a polling station at the City Hall of Iracoubo, French Guiana

Ballots with the names of 2017 French presidential election candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen

Both candidates and French national media were not allowed by law from midnight last night to discuss the presidential campaign until after the electorate has voted.

Macron's campaign team says it put in place servers protected by sophisticated software filters, recommended the use of several encrypted messaging and cellphone networks, and required triple authentication to access emails.

It says it stored its information in multiple-partitioned cells, with databases separated like fortresses, accessible by passwords that were complex and regularly changed.

'In this kind of organisation the real potential faultline is the human element,' the head of computer services for En Marche!

Because security procedures can become long and cumbersome, some people can be tempted to get around them by using personal email services which are little or badly protected.

A report by a Japanese cyber-security company blamed the attack on Russian hacking group Pawn Storm, also known as Fancy Bears, Tsar Team and APT28.

Deputy Mayor Joanne Briand checks a voter's ID before he casts his ballot for the second round of the French presidential election

Some nine gigabytes of data were posted by a user called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a document-sharing site that allows anonymous posting

The group, suspected of close links to the Russian security services, is also accused of having targeted the Democratic Party during last year's US presidential election, in which Republican-backed Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Current President Francois Hollande promised a response to the hacking.

'We knew that there were these risks during the presidential campaign because it happened elsewhere. Nothing will go without a response,' he said during a visit of a cultural institute in Paris.

'If there has been any interference or appropriations, there will be procedures which will begin,' he said, adding: 'We need to let the investigations happen.'

The documents spread on social media just before midnight on Friday in what Macron's team termed an attempt at 'democratic destabilisation, like that seen during the last presidential campaign in the United States'.

Hollande added that 'since we learned that there are these operations, that there are these threats, we have been extremely vigilant.'

A man casts his ballot at a polling station at the City Hall of Saint-Pierre, on the French archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon

Emmanuel Macron's advisor Michele 'Mimi' Marchand (centre), French photographers Sebastien Valiela (right, foreground) and Cyril Moreau (left) in Le Touquet

He said he was unable to say whether it was an attempt at destabilising the election, as alleged by Macron's team.

'I can't say,' he said, speaking at the Arab World Institute while accompanied by the king of Morocco, Mohammed VI.

Numerama, a French online publication focusing on digital life, said that the hacked material appeared to have been disseminated through users of 4Chan, an online bulletin board.

It states the 'banal' documents were held on a hard disk with details of email addresses of associates and political officials of En Marche!

It claims to have found invoices, references and personal exchanges about the weather and an email confirming an edition of a novel and a restaurant reservation.

The news website states: 'We have downloaded the documents and while it is impossible for us scour them fully in a realistic time frame, it is not in doubt that the documents appear real, compared with numerous fake documents which have been floating around and which were sent out by the Front National in the past few days.

'It will take time to verify these documents but on first site the documents appear to be banal.'

An electoral card next to ballots for the French presidential election candidates

The data dump contains invoices for rooms rented as En Marche! party office and insurance documents amongst other 'normal' work documents.

French political journalist Julien Cabot of French news website Numerama told MailOnline: 'I have spent several hours going through the files.

'There are insurance documents, invoices for rooms rented to act as party offices and receipts for restaurant meals – those kind of things.

'What is important is the timing of the data dump.

'It is against the law in France to publish or broadcast any information about either of the candidates so not to give one advantage over the other after midnight last night.

'So newspapers, websites, TV and radio cannot discuss the detail of the data in any way. However the data dump has acted to create uncertainty.

Scores of people and media gathered outside Macron's property on the eve of the elections

Macron's team said: 'The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information.

'The files were obtained several weeks ago thanks to the hacking of personal and professional mailboxes of several leaders of the En Marche! movement.

'Those who circulate these documents add a number of false documents to genuine documents in order to sow doubt and disinformation.

'The hackers' ambition is obviously to harm the movement En Marche! A few hours of the second round of the French presidential election.

'Obviously, the documents from piracy are all legal and reflect the normal operation of a presidential campaign.

'Their dissemination makes internal data public but there is no concern about the legality and the conformity of the documents.

'It is not a mere piracy operation but an attempt to destabilize the French presidential election.'

An Ifop poll says Macron leads Le Pen 63 per cent to 37 per cent and four other surveys show Macron on 62 and Le Pen on 38

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen at her last rally before the election

Former economy minister Macron's team has previously complained about attempts to hack its emails during a fraught campaign, blaming Russian interests for the cyber attacks.

President Vladimir Putin, previously accused of interfering in last year's US polls, is said to favour anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen whose election would contribute to the further destabilisation of the Union.

On April 26, Macron's team said it had been the target of a series of attempts to steal email credentials since January, but that the perpetrators had so far failed to compromise any campaign data.

In February, the Kremlin denied that it was behind any such attacks, even though Macron's camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine.

It came two days before voters go to the polls to choose the country's next president in a run-off with Marine Le Pen.

Le Pen met Vladimir Putin in Moscow in March this year. They are both anti EU

Official posters of the candidates for the 2017 French presidential election

While one poll puts Macron 60 points ahead, an Ifop poll says he leads Le Pen 63 per cent to 37 per cent. Four other surveys show Macron on 62 and Le Pen on 38.

This margin is not as big as the one that centre-right candidate Jacques Chirac beat Marine's father Jean-Marie Le Pen by in 2002, gaining 82.2 per cent versus the 17.8 per cent of Le Pen.

Ms Le Pen's National Front party has - significantly - not even announced where their candidate will be after polls close on Sunday evening following the second and final round of voting.

On the last day of campaigning yesterday, one of Mr Macron's aides said: 'The Louvre will be the venue for our election night party in case of victory.'

Crowds will gather on the esplanade by the glass pyramid at the centre of the historic complex, which dates back to the 12th Century, and was once the home of French Royalty.

En Marche! - Mr Macron's political movement - had originally wanted to use the Champs de Mars, in front of the Eiffel Tower, but this was turned down.

The Champs is at the centre of Paris's Olympic bid for 2024, and there were fears that thousands of people would destroy the grass lawns.

In contrast, the area around the Louvre is cobbled or concreted, and always full of people.

While one poll puts Macron 60 points ahead, an Ifop poll says he leads Le Pen 63 per cent to 37 per cent. Four other surveys show Macron on 62 and Le Pen on 38

Macron's (left) gruelling televised debate with Le Pen (right) on Wednesday was 'watched widely' at the highest levels of the European institutions

The museum, which contains masterpieces including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, is the biggest in the world, and welcomes more than 7million visitors a year.

Previous new presidents have chosen more modest venues, such as restaurants or campaign headquarters.

Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen have been involved in an increasingly bitter contest, accusing each other of being unfit to live up to the grandeur of the French presidency.

Paris prosecutors have just opened an investigation into suggestions by Ms Le Pen that her rival – a former merchant banker – has a hidden offshore bank account in the Bahamas.

Mr Macron has lodged a legal complaint about 'the spreading of false information', while openly accusing Ms Le Pen of running a deceitful and divisive campaign.

Such claims have been widely supported by the French media, with Le Monde running a front page story on Thursday accusing Ms Le Pen of being a serial liar.

There will be no campaigning at all on Saturday, before the polls open on Sunday morning.

Greenpeace activists were able to unfurl a huge banner under the Eiffel Tower saying 'liberty, equality, fraternity'

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