Le Pen’s Election Odds Jump as Student Riots Sweep France

In the past seven days Polymarket lifted Marine Le Pen’s odds of winning the 2027 French presidential election from 38.4% to 45.1%, reflecting a sharp rise in her popularity. The shift aligns with an intensifying wave of student unrest that began over education funding and has expanded to over 1,200 schools across France, resulting in roughly 5,000 arrests, many of them teenagers. Protesters have set schools ablaze, assaulted police and firefighters, and launched fireworks at law-enforcement lines, with incidents reported in La Ciotat near Marseille and Paris’s 20th arrondissement.

French intelligence services claim the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) and its proxies are directing the unrest, a charge the party rejects while accusing the government of heavy-handed repression. Former LFI aide Ritchy Thibault was detained after urging demonstrators to build barricades and burn the Élysée. Le Pen has seized the moment to push a tougher security agenda, demanding “exemplary sentences” for rioters and proposing a new anti-riot statute that would criminalise participation in riots. RN leader Jordan Bardella linked the violence to years of perceived laxity and mass immigration.