There is another big political betting market floating around at the moment and that is the French Election for the next President. Former Prime Minister Francois Fillon is heading up the market at a price of 4/11 as he took a victory on Sunday to head up France’s centre right party Les Republicains. The election isn’t until next spring but the Republicans have put their stock in him, upsetting expectations as he took out opponent Alain Juppe (who was a former front runner to actually win the election) it sees the party move away from the centre right and further out to the right in terms of political stance under the stern Fillon.
Fillon was called “Mister Nobody” during his time as Prime Minister (2007 – 2012) because he comes across as being very low in charisma. Fillon wasn’t even noticeable in the early campaigning stages of the primaries, he was a big outsider to get the party nomination of the seven candidates that were running for it. He was largely ignored with the presence of former president Nicolas Sarkozy and Juppe, the latter being seen as the only real contender who can take on the Front National’s contender Marine Le Pen. But when it comes to the votes, he stormed it, crushing his opponents from absolutely nowhere and now he is favourite to become President.
He is very pro-establishment and once again it will have bookmakers on alert after numerous staggering political suspects over the past couple of years. The British Labour Party leadership election and the 2015 British Election set the bals rolling when Jeremy Corbyn came through from nowhere to become the head of the Labour Party and then out of nowhere the Conservatives won the General Election.
Then you can throw on top of that the Brexit vote and the outcome of the US Presidential election and you are going to have bookmakers scrambling and not sure where to go. William Hill had been keeping Marine Le Pen as short as possible in the market, and there is a promise of a strong turnout for her in the election. But she has gone out on the drift now to 5/2 with William Hill because of the presence of Fillon having claimed an unexpected role in putting himself in line to become the Next President of France.
Just a couple of weeks ago before the Right took on their primaries, there was about a 17 percent chance of Fillon becoming the next president with Le Pen, who really needs to push out and suck in the support of the far left to boost her chances in now what could be a much tighter race, was around a 40% chance. Here is the thing, the task of winning the presidency has gotten harder for Ms Le Pen because the Front National has been caught off guard by Fallon’s success and the already somewhat fractured FN party could be split further if she doesn’t push on and win. The FN was geared up to attack Juppe’s more main-stream centre-right stance than the full on right wing-ism of Fillon.
Whether she has the full support of the left remains to be seen and if it’s not there, she not getting the Presidency although she is penned in to win the first round of polling, but coming down to the last round of voting where she likely to stand toe to toe with social conservative Fillon, she stands to be behind. Fillon has a hard line on identity and Islam and in a very Donald Trump-esque call, is prepared to “tear the house down and rebuild it”. It is a message which sucked in a lot of votes to pull for the underdog Trump in the US Election, those who had become disillusioned with politics as usual. Fillon also stands for radical economic reforms.
French Election – Next PResident Betting Odds
François Fillon 4/11, Marie Le Pen 9/4, Emmanuel Macron 16/1, Manuel Valls 20/1, Francois Hollande 50/1, 80/1 bar
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