A protester waving a French national flag walks past a fire during clashes prior to the start of a demonstration to protest against the "high cost of living", in Marseille, southern France, on Oct. 17, 2026.
Thibaud Moritz | AFP | Getty Images
As protests intensify in France, Kalshi traders see a growing likelihood that far-right candidate Marine Le Pen will win that country's presidential race in 2027.
Student-led protests first erupted in Paris over frustration with school conditions and teacher shortages in September but rippled into national outrage over the country's living costs and public services, including in education and healthcare. Authorities said over 500,000 people demonstrated nationwide over the weekend.
Since the protests have started, Kalshi trading activity over who will be the next French president has jumped on Kalshi. Odds for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen have jumped to 53% from 39% in the last month.
Just days after the protests began, speculators placed a 44.7% chance on Sept. 26 that David Lisnard, the current mayor of Cannes, would become the country's next president. Those odds came in just a day after he held a major campaign rally for the presidential race.
Lisnard's Kalshi odds of winning the 2027 presidential contest dropped to 11% by Tuesday afternoon. The contract asks "Next French presidential election winner?" and will be verified by French government next year.
Le Pen has repeatedly criticized the escalating civil unrest, cementing it as a key message in her campaign and arguing that leadership under Emmanuel Macron's centrist government has contributed to the conditions behind the protests.
"You saw yesterday our cities, our streets, our country, battered, mistreated, ransacked," Le Pen wrote in an Oct. 18 post on social media platform X, following some of the country's worst unrest in years, with over 2,000 arrests and nearly 1,000 police officers and gendarmes injured, according to the country's ministry.
During the demonstration on 17 October in Limoges protesters set fire to the town hall in Limoges Haute-Vienne in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France on 17 October 2026.
Elise Cabane | Afp | Getty Images
"We are living through a profound crisis of trust, of authority that poses a threat to democracy. This observation must alert us: our country is caught in a vise, or even taken hostage, between violence and powerlessness," Le Pen added.
French stocks are also facing volatility, with the CAC 40 index down 2.8% in the last month and off almost 6% in the last six months. The country's bond yields, which measure the government's borrowing costs, have also been on the rise, with the 10-year government bond yield trading above 4.9%.
"It will be difficult to see the budget deficit come down without painful measures," Sharon Bell, senior European equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Monday.
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