Eric Cantona launches French presidency bid to highlight housing charity Cantona said he "chose the housing issue as it seems to me to be essential and concerns 10 million people." I had to act at a time when I was likely to be heard. The presidential election will start in April, with a second round set for May. Centre-right President Nicolas Sarkozy of the UMP party has been trailing Socialist rival Francois Hollande in opinion polls. Cantona played for Manchester United from 1992 to 1997 and 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, urging 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." Finance Minister Francois Baroin said as a mayor he would not back the bid and preferred "the Cantona who looks after housing to the Cantona who told the French to withdraw their money from the banks in order to cause a disaster." Junior Housing Minister Benoist Apparu disputed Cantona's figure of 10 million poorly housed people, telling BFM-TV there were only 3.5 million but admitting: "That's already a thousand times too many." Patrick Doutreligne of the Abbe-Pierre Foundation for Housing for the Underprivileged, of which Cantona is a patron, told AFP the footballer did not actually expect or want to be the next president of France. He will indeed seek 500 signatures, not for the election but so that housing is a priority. So that the mayors sign-up to the foundation's call for mobilisation, so that housing is the campaign's main theme," Doutreligne said. "You need a spur like Cantona to give housing the place it deserves in this campaign," Doutreligne said. One of Cantona's most-famous moments was when he launched a flying kung-fu style kick and several punches at a fan as he was sent off during a 1995 match. After the match, he famously told journalists: "When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."