French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron target for Russian 'fake news'

French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has become a "fake news" target for the Russian media, according to his party chief.

The En Marche! Party leader is the favourite to win the election, however his party chief believes he is now the target of Russian attacks due to his pro-European stance.

Two of Russia's largest state owned media outlets - television network Russia Today and radio network Sputnik - have run reports accusing the former investment banker of being an agent of "the big American banking system".

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The daily Russian newspaper Izvestia has also reported comments from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who said his organisation had "interesting information" about Mr Macron.

Additionally, it is claimed that En Marche! campaign computers have been targeted in "hundreds if not thousands" of Russian cyber-attacks.

Party chief Richard Ferrand said the aim of the false reports was to swing public opinion against Mr Macron.

He said: "What we want is for authorities at the highest level to take the matter in hand to guarantee that there is no foreign meddling in our democracy. The Americans saw it but it came too late."

Last month US intelligence agencies issued a report which pointed to a cyber campaign designed to discredit Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

They claim the attack was directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

There is now strong suspicion that such a cyber-attack is being aimed at Mr Macron, who earlier this month was forced to deny having a gay relationship outside his marriage to Brigitte Trogneux.

Conservative candidate Francois Fillon has also been hit by scandal during the campaign, which has severely dented the former front-runner's popularity in the polls.

An investigation is currently under way into alleged "fake work" carried out by his wife Penelope, who it has been claimed was paid hundreds of thousands of euros in taxpayers' money for work she did not carry out.

Mr Fillon's decline in popularity means he has now been overtaken by Mr Macron in polls for the first round of the election process on 23 April, trailing behind far right leader Marine Le Pen .

Ms Le Pen has pledged to have good relations with Russia if elected.

However, under France's electoral system, the top two from the opening round will go into a run-off vote on 7 May, and polls show either Mr Macron or Mr Fillon winning comfortably against Ms Le Pen.

Ms Le Pen recently used a visit to the scene of the Nice terror attack to accuse the government of failing to tackle extremism.