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。

Former soccer player Eric Cantona walks in the paddock ahead of the British F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone, central England, June 21, 2009.
Football star turned actor Eric Cantona launched a mock bid for the French presidency¹ on Tuesday in a stunt²（噱头，手腕） designed to highlight the plight³ 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 publicity⁴ 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 celebrity⁵ 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 wary⁶ of the damage that the broody（多产的） celebrity could potentially do to Sarkozy's camp in the run-up to an election where Socialist⁷ challenger Francois Hollande is the pollsters' favourite.

Three decades ago, popular stand-up comic Coluche (real name Michel Colucci) caused alarm among mainstream⁸ 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 envoys⁹ 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 resonance¹⁰（共振，共鸣） than his previous foray（突袭，侵略） 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 flop¹¹, almost no one in France heeded¹² 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 helping¹³, the Fondation Abbe Pierre.