LONDON • The election of Mr Emmanuel Macron as France's President was always regarded as an unusual affair; he had scant prior government experience, enjoyed no support from either of the country's major political parties, created no serious party structure of his own and espoused no ideology apart from a promise to have no ideology - and yet he became the youngest man to rule France in more than two centuries.

But as Mr Macron marks a year in the Elysee presidential palace, information is now emerging that his election was a trailblazer in another crucial respect: The success of the French authorities in defeating a massive and concerted cyberspace campaign aimed at discrediting Mr Macron's candidacy.