The former striker for Manchester United, Eric Cantona, has recently said that he wishes to run for president in France. He has taken actions to gather signatures from elected officials so that he can start his election campaign by the end of February. Mr Cantona describes himself as an engaged citizen of France and has written to politicians all over the country in the hope that they will sign a letter of recommendation.
Mr Cantona has recently had an article published in a newspaper that is very critical of the limited opportunities young people currently have in France and wants to fight against social injustice. The first round of elections for candidates will finish in April and the two biggest vote winners in this campaign will go through to a second-round which takes place in May.
The leading socialist contender is Fracois Hallande and is currently ahead of the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy in early polling. Mr Cantona must get 500 signatures if he wishes to get through to the second round of elections. Getting the signatures is going to be particularly difficult as he does not have the backing of a party and is running as an independent candidate.
Mr Cantona has been known in the past for highlighting issues of social injustice and he has used a lot of the money he made as a footballer to raise awareness of these issues. In 2010 he launched a public campaign urging people to withdraw their money from the banks in protest of the financial institutions roles in causing the global financial crisis.
Very few people in France actually listened to his calls and the campaign was largely a flop. Mr Cantona received quite a lot of negative criticism from the press for his failure in this regard.
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