French politician Marine Le Pen’s ban from public office has been cut short after a Paris appeals court reduced the penalty she received in a 2025 embezzlement conviction, clearing the far-right National Rally leader to run in France’s 2027 presidential election.
Kalshi traders have responded by making her the front-runner in the market.
The market for the 2027 French presidential election shows Le Pen with a 35% chance of winning, followed by Édouard Philippe at 23%, and Jordan Bardella at 9.7%.
Le Pen’s embezzlement conviction
The New York Times called the appeal “a stunning turnaround in Ms. Le Pen’s fortunes. For more than a year, her candidacy had been viewed as close to a lost cause, after her initial conviction on corruption charges came with a crippling five-year ban on seeking public office.”
Le Pen was previously found guilty of embezzling public funds in March 2025 as part of a party scheme involving nearly €3 million.
Le Pen was not accused of personally pocketing the funds. The court found that between 2004 and 2016, National Rally used European Parliament funds intended to pay parliamentary assistants to instead finance party activities.
While the appeals court upheld her conviction, it reduced both her sentence and the electoral ban, allowing her to run in the 2027 election.
Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence and a 100,000 euro fine. The court suspended two years of her sentence and ruled that she could serve the remainder under house arrest.
An appeals court further reduced her sentence to three years, with two suspended, leaving her with one year of house arrest in which she’s required to wear an electronic ankle tag. The court also reduced her electoral ban to 45 months, with 30 suspended. The remaining 15 months are set to be backdated to her original 2025 conviction, effectively expiring the ban and clearing her to run in 2027.
France’s presidential election
Now that Le Pen is eligible to run again, she is expected to lead National Rally’s campaign for the presidency.
Politico’s Marion Solletty and Clea Caulcutt wrote that Le Pen has a strong chance of winning the presidential election. A recent poll by the French institute Ifop found that her protégé, Jordan Bardella, leads a hypothetical field with 36 percent of the vote, with Le Pen next at 32 percent. Bardella would have become National Rally’s nominee if Le Pen’s ban had remained in effect.
She also carries name recognition and distance from “the older generation that has not forgotten her father’s antisemitic and racist remarks.”
Le Pen no longer campaigns on leaving the European Union, having dropped her earlier push to exit the bloc in favor of overhauling it from within. She carries some weakness on economic issues that “have also historically scared off voters from the traditional, free-market-oriented right, which Bardella had been courting before the verdict. That group could be key to winning in 2027.”
With her legal path to the presidency restored, Kalshi traders now view her as a formidable contender.
The takeaway:
Kalshi markets now predict:
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