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Emmanuel Macron’s move to call snap elections has cast a shadow over the Paris Olympic Games, raising the possibility of political unrest and a far-right government in charge of the world’s biggest sporting event.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is projected to become the biggest parliamentary party after the run-off vote on Sunday. While a hung parliament appears the most likely outcome, if the RN were to win a majority, its 28-year-old party chief Jordan Bardella could be prime minister when the Games open on July 26, with his team greeting top athletes and dignitaries from across the world.

The timing of Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament was “catastrophic for the Games”, said Pascal Boniface, head of Paris-based think-tank Iris and an expert on the politics of sport. “We are in the thickest of fog over the future.”

Pierre Rabadan, a senior official responsible for Olympics planning in the Paris mayoralty of Socialist Anne Hidalgo, told the Financial Times he was “stupefied” by Macron’s “irresponsible” decision.

While he said the main strategic decisions had already been made, the move had raised “pragmatic and operational questions”, including deploying mayoral staff and city police for both the elections and the Games.

“We had thought about all the possible scenarios, except for the dissolution of the Assembly,” added Rabadan, a former professional rugby player with Stade Français.

Security experts had already warned of big policing challenges for the opening ceremony, in which thousands of athletes will sail down the River Seine watched by around 300,000 spectators along the quays. Pressure on security services would further be aggravated if anti-RN protesters were to take to the streets, they said.

Rabadan said his main concern now was the image of France that a far-right government, with an anti-immigration and nativist policy platform, would present.

“The Games are about welcoming the entire world and showing that we are an open country,” Rabadan said. “That clearly goes completely against what the Rassemblement National wants.”

Hidalgo told France 2 on Tuesday that “the party would not be spoiled” by an RN government.

But dozens of athletes have voiced concerns about the elections. Prior to the first round, French football star and captain of the national team Kylian Mbappé called on the electorate to vote “against the extremists”, while almost 300 sportspeople, including Rabadan, signed a column in French sports publication L’Equipe opposing the RN.

“In my memory, I have never seen athletes engage to this extent in the political field,” said Boniface.

Macron’s sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera told journalists ahead of the first round that despite the extensive preparations for the Olympics, an RN majority would mean far-right politicians with no experience in national government would still have to make important decisions “in a geopolitical context that is difficult, delicate and tense”.

Bardella has said he would not change the officials running the Games.

Guy Drut, a former 110m hurdles Olympic champion and sports minister under President Jacques Chirac, and one of the few athletes to publicly back the RN campaign, told Le Monde: “There is no reason the Games would go badly under an RN government.”

Scattered protests were held against the RN after the first-round vote. Paris police commissioner Laurent Nuñez told France Inter that the authorities were ready for further unrest but that this would not interrupt the Games.

“We’re preparing for this type of protest and we will have an extremely large [presence] in the Greater Paris region of 45,000 officers to manage [disorder],” he said.

In a further potential risk to smooth running, four unions representing airport management staff have threatened to strike in pursuit of “a uniform and fair bonus” for working during the event. Police, air traffic controllers, rubbish collectors and train and bus staff have already been promised bonuses.

Despite his confidence that policing and organisation were well in hand, Rabadan lamented the impact of the elections on the build-up. “There is very, very strong enthusiasm and popular support,” he said. “But the president’s decision . . . has put a stop to that rise in excitement we were hoping for, so that’s really quite disappointing.”

The US Agency for Global Media, part of the State Department that provides news and information in countries where the press is restricted, was notified “a couple months ago” by Microsoft that some of its data may have been stolen, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. No security or personally identifiable sensitive data was compromised, the spokesperson said.

The agency is working closely with the Department of Homeland Security on the incident, the spokesperson said, declining to answer additional questions. A State Department spokesperson said, “We are aware that Microsoft is reaching out to agencies, both affected and unaffected, in the spirit of transparency.”

Microsoft disclosed in January that a Russian hacking group it calls Midnight Blizzard had accessed corporate email accounts and later warned that they were attempting to use secrets shared between the technology giant and its customers. The company has declined to identify the customers who were impacted.

“As our investigation continues, we have been reaching out to customers to notify them if they had corresponded with a Microsoft corporate email account that was accessed,” a Microsoft spokesperson said on Wednesday. “We will continue to coordinate, support and assist our customers in taking mitigating measures.”

In addition, the Department of Veterans Affairs was notified in March that it was impacted the Microsoft breach, officials for the agency said.

A one-second intrusion

The hackers used a single set of stolen credentials — found in the emails they accessed — to break into a test environment in the VA’s Microsoft Cloud account around January, the officials said, adding that the intrusion lasted for one second. Midnight Blizzard likely intended to check if the credentials were valid, presumably with the larger intention of breaching the VA’s network, the officials said. 

The agency changed the exposed credentials, along with log-in details across their Microsoft environments, once they were notified of the intrusion, they said. After reviewing the emails that the hackers accessed, the VA determined that no additional credentials or sensitive email was taken, the officials said.

Terrence Hayes, the VA’s press secretary, said an investigation is continuing to determine any additional impact.

The Peace Corps was also contacted by Microsoft and notified about the Midnight Blizzard breach, according to a statement from its press office. “Based on this notification, Peace Corps technical staff were able to mitigate the vulnerability,” according to the agency. The Peace Corps declined further comment.

Bloomberg News asked other federal agencies for comment, and none of the others disclosed that they were impacted by Midnight Blizzard’s attack on Microsoft. Bloomberg previously reported that more than a dozen Texas state agencies and public universities were exposed by the Russian hack.

Midnight Blizzard, also known in cybersecurity circles as “Cozy Bear” and “APT29,” is part of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, according to US and UK authorities. 

In April, US federal agencies were ordered to analyze emails, reset compromise passwords and work to secure Microsoft cloud accounts amid fears that Midnight Blizzard may have accessed correspondence. Microsoft has been notifying some customers in the months since then that their emails with the tech giant were accessed by the Russian hackers.

The Midnight Blizzard breach was one in a series of high-profile and damaging security failures at the Redmond, Washington-based technology company, which has drawn strong condemnation by the US government. Microsoft President Brad Smith appeared before Congress last month where he acknowledged security failures and vowed to improve the company’s operations.