法国前曼联球星坎通纳欲竞选总统

前曼联足球队前锋埃里克-坎通纳日前宣布，他想要参加今年举行的法国总统大选，目前正在努力收集官员支持签名。坎通纳必须在2月份结束之前收集到500名法国现任官员的签名支持才能正式参选。他已经致信法国各城市的市长，称自己是一个“有责任感的公民”，希望获得他们的支持。在这封发表在《解放报》上的公开信中，坎通纳还谴责了法国社会不公正、年轻人缺少机遇的现象。这已经不是坎通纳第一次号召公众关注社会不公正现象。2010年12月，他曾呼吁法国全国的储户收回存在金融机构的存款，他认为正是这些机构激发了全球性金融危机，然而几乎没人回应他的呼吁。法国总统候选人将在4月末完成第一轮对决，得票率最高的两人将在5月初进行第二轮决选。

Football star turned actor Eric Cantona launched a mock bid for the French presidency on Tuesday in a stunt designed to highlight the plight of millions of poor and homeless people.

The former Manchester United striker appeared on the front cover of the left-leaning Liberation newspaper, next to the headline "Cantona enters the campaign" and an appeal for the 500 signatures he would need to run for the top job.

The paper made it clear Cantona would not actually stand but wanted to use the publicity to campaign for better housing for as many as 10 million people he said were priced out of the property market.

"Housing is not just a real problem. It's a problem that is really treated with contempt," Cantona, 45, told the newspaper.

The announcement by the media-savvy celebrity did succeed in raising the issue higher up the political agenda, for a few hours at least.

Ministers from President Nicolas Sarkozy's government were quick to pick up on an issue that has not featured prominently in the debate so far, with just over 100 days to the opening vote, on April 22, in a two-round presidential election.

"Eric Cantona is highlighting a real issue," said Nathalie Kosciuski-Morizet, environment minister. "He's right when he says sub-standard housing is an issue despite all the government's efforts," she told Europe 1 radio.

She like others will be wary of the damage that the broody celebrity could potentially do to Sarkozy's camp in the run-up to an election where Socialist challenger Francois Hollande is the pollsters' favourite.

Three decades ago, popular stand-up comic Coluche (real name Michel Colucci) caused alarm among mainstream presidential candidates when he announced that he too was going to join the race, saying: "Before me, France was split in two. With me it will split its sides (laughing)."

Legend has it that Coluche, who never followed through on his candidacy declaration, received several visits from envoys sent by the two principal candidates in the election of 1981, Valery Giscard d'Estaing and ultimate winner Francois Mitterrand.

Cantona's appeal may have more resonance than his previous foray into French activism.

In December 2010, he called on French savers to stage a nationwide bank run by withdrawing their money from financial institutions because of their role in triggering the global financial crisis. Panned by the media as a flop, almost no one in France heeded the much-hyped call.

The price of existing housing more than doubled between 2000 and 2010 but disposable incomes rose by just one third in the same period, according to the national statistics office, INSEE.

Hardship in paying for housing and paying other bills after those for housing is increasingly disproportionally among poorer people, according to the charity Cantona is helping, the Fondation Abbe Pierre.