A bet on France's clear leader triples your money

Marine Le Pen is the favorite to be the next president of France. On Polymarket's French election market, betting on her costs 32 cents. If she wins on May 2, 2027, each share pays a dollar. That is a 211% return. Three weeks ago, she cost 8.5 cents.

The market repriced so suddenly because of a court ruling. In March 2025, a French court found her guilty of taking €2.8 million of European Parliament money. It banned her from office for five years. The ban started that same day, so she was out of the race.

She appealed, and on July 7, the Paris appeals court agreed she was guilty, but it cut the ban to 15 months. Those 15 months had already passed. She left the courthouse free to run, and announced her campaign that evening.

Her market jumped from 8.5 cents to 28.7 overnight. Jordan Bardella is her deputy, and he was the man who would have run in her place. He fell from 26.5 cents to 5.3.

After all of this, the polls arrived. France votes in two rounds, and everyone runs in the first one. The top two go to a second round two weeks later. Five pollsters asked voters in the four days after the ruling, and the voters put Le Pen between 35% and 37%. Nobody else was above 19%.

The second round is where her party has always lost. Every other party tells its voters to back whoever is standing against her. It has worked every time. It is not working now. Elabe tested her against four rivals on July 9, and she beat all four. Édouard Philippe 52 to 48. Gabriel Attal 54 to 46. Bruno Retailleau 56 to 44. Jean-Luc Mélenchon 67.5 to 32.5.

To beat her, her opponents have to line up behind one person. Unfortunately, they cannot.

Édouard Philippe is the closest they have. He was Macron's first prime minister and has been running since September 2024. He polls around 17% and has been falling since March. Prosecutors are also looking at a building project in Le Havre, where he is mayor. He has not been charged. But it blunts his sharpest attack. He cannot call Le Pen a criminal while his own city hall is under investigation.

Gabriel Attal was prime minister after Philippe. He wants the centre to hold its own vote first and put forward a single name. Philippe has refused.

The mainstream right is not joining either. It is running Bruno Retailleau, who polls 7 to 10%.

The left is in even worse shape. Its parties hold about a fifth of the vote between them, and ten people want to lead them. On July 10 the Socialists voted 55 to 44.5 to run their own contest and keep most of the others out of it.

That is four groups and four candidates. Le Pen only has to finish in the top two.

Although, she can still lose her place on the ballot, and it is her own appeal that could cost it. She is still convicted. So on that same July evening she went one court higher, to the Cour de cassation. That court does not decide guilt. It checks whether the courts below it applied the law correctly. It may not rule until early April 2027, two weeks before the first vote. If it throws the July ruling out, then the original five year ban may come back.

Still, somebody has to actually beat her in May. Three weeks of polling has come back with nobody. Thus, betting on Le Pen buys the most likely president of France and triples your money in the end.