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Cantona takes shot at French presidency

Footballer-turned-actor Eric Cantona, after failing in a quixotic bid to destroy global banking, is lining up a long-odds shot at the French presidency, according to a report Tuesday.

Published: 10 January 2012 08:55 CET

Cantona takes shot at French presidency

The ex-Manchester United player, known to English fans as King Eric, has written to French mayors seeking the 500 signatures from elected officials that are necessary for a presidential bid, Liberation said in a front-page report.

But in an editorial, the newspaper said Cantona was applying one of his legendary footballing feints on the political field, using the unlikely presidential run to secure his real aim – help for the poorly housed.

In his letter to city mayors dated January 4, Cantona did not mention whether he saw himself as a potential candidate for president.

But the 45-year-old said he was “a citizen very much aware of our times”, which he argued offer “too-limited chances” to the young and generate “violent” and “systematic” injustices.

He said he felt obliged to speak up “at a time when our country faces difficult choices” and that the current economic uncertainty gave him “a sense of my responsibility”.

He added that getting the 500 mayors to sign up to his message on housing and poverty “would allow me to send a simple but clear message; a message of truth and respect”.

Speaking to Liberation, Cantona said he “chose the housing issue as it seems to me to be essential and concerns tens of millions of people”.

“I had to act at a time when I was likely to be heard.”

The presidential election will get under way in April.

As a player Cantona was known for both his genius and ill-discipline, as well as his often colourful and incomprehensible remarks.

Late in 2010 he entered the political and economic fray, calling on his compatriots to withdraw cash en masse as a way to bring banking to its knees – although it emerged that his actress wife had appeared in a TV bank advert.

French and European politicians and bankers condemned Cantona as irresponsible, naive and misguided, and his call to action was not taken up.

Considered one of the greats of the game, Cantona retired from professional football in 1997 and has since turned to acting, notably in director Ken Loach’s “Looking For Eric”.

France's Macron visits Germany to soothe ties and warn of far-right peril

Macron on his three-day, four-stop visit will seek to emphasise the historic importance of the postwar relationship between the two key EU states, as France next month commemorates 80 years since the D-Day landings that marked the beginning of the end of German World War II occupation.

But all has not been smooth in a relationship often seen as the engine of the EU, with Berlin taken aback by Macron’s refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine and German officials said to be uneasy at times about his often-theatrical style of foreign policy.

In a question-and-answer session on social media with young people earlier this month, Macron enlisted help from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz when asked if the Franco-German “couple” was still working.

“Hello dear friends, long live French-German friendship!” Scholz said in French in a video on Macron’s X feed. “Thank you Olaf! I very much agree with you,” Macron replied in heavily accented German.

While Macron is a frequent visitor to Berlin, the trip will be the first state visit in 24 years following a trip by Jacques Chirac in 2000 and the sixth since the first postwar state visit by Charles de Gaulle in in 1962.

Macron’s trip will begin Sunday afternoon with a day of talks with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose role is largely ceremonial compared with the might of the French presidency.

On Tuesday he will travel to Dresden in the former East Germany to deliver a speech on Europe at a European festival. Tuesday sees Macron in the western German city of Munster and later in Meseberg outside Berlin for talks with Scholz and a Franco-German joint cabinet meeting.

‘Ways of compromise’

The trip comes two weeks ahead of European elections where polls show that in a major potential embarrassment for Macron, his coalition is trailing well behind the far right and may struggle to even reach third place.

The speech in Dresden, a city where the German far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) garners considerable support, will likely see Macron warn of the danger the far right poses to Europe.

In a keynote address on foreign policy last month, Macron issued a dire warning about the threats to Europe in a changing world in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“Our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die,” Macron said. “It can die and this depends only on our choices.”

Officials from both sides are at pains to emphasise that while there are periodic tensions on specific issues, the fundamental basis of the relationship remains sound.

But Macron’s refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine sparked an unusually acidic response from Scholz that Germany had no such plans. Germany also does not share Macron’s enthusiasm for a European strategic autonomy less dependent on the United States.

“The Franco-German relationship is about disagreeing and trying to find ways of compromise,” said Helene Miard-Delacroix, specialist in German history at the Sorbonne university in Paris.

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