MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Monday, Macron's spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told Public Senat news outlet that Sputnik and RT "fully controlled by the Russian government, have been slandering some candidates for several months, namely, Emmanuel Macron, while sparing the others, Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon, in particular." Also on Monday, another Macron ally, Richard Ferrand, the general secretary of En Marche! party, said that Sputnik and RT outlets "spread fake news", which are later "used, quoted and influence our democratic life."
"These are the regular attacks on the RT, which do not have a single word of truth in them, cause a feeling… of deja vu. We wish Emmanuel Macron's team not to repeat the mistakes of the US establishment, and to focus on the campaign instead of bashing the Russian media. Macron's campaign discredits itself with such delusional and offensive remarks," Simonyan said.
Sputnik news agency on Wednesday denied allegations made by Griveaux that the agency had launched the campaign to discredit the candidate.
Zakharova recalled that former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had made similar accusations against Russia when information compromising her party was leaked. Clinton said Russia was behind cyberattacks which obtained the information. Russia rejected the claims, while the country's President Vladimir Putin stating that the Russian hacking scandal "hysteria" was fomented to distract people from domestic problems.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin also reacted to claims made by Macron's ally, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling these accusations "absurd."
