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At the end of the French presidential debate between frontrunners Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the National Front candidate (Le Pen) attacked her rival by saying that she hoped that his offshore Bahamian account would not be revealed. On the next day, she repeated this during a morning political talk show but protected herself by adding that there was no evidence. Macron immediately filed a complaint with the prosecution for the dissemination of fake news to influence the outcome of the presidential election, and the Paris Prosecutor’s Office launched proceedings.
The French media quickly tracked the fake news trail, published at 7 p.m. in the American 4chan right-wing forum, and immediately propagated by dozens of pro-Kremlin twitter accounts with the #MacronCacheCash and #MacronGate tags. The rumor spread and was used only two hours later by Le Pen at the end of the debate.
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Two documents were published in the forum, which, according to the anonymous user, expose Emmanuel Macron of having an offshore account. The first is an Operating Agreement for a company registered in the jurisdiction of Nevis Island, with Macron’s signature as the beneficiary and the second is a bank letter from a bank in the Cayman Islands, issued to a company with a similar name. Both documents were refuted by Macron’s campaign headquarters, which published his signatures and a graphology expert report backing the forgery claim.