A call by French ex-footballer Eric Cantona for people to punish banks by withdrawing all their cash has been condemned by EU ministers.
Cantona went online to call for customers to empty their accounts on Tuesday in a “revolution” against a “corrupt, criminal” banking system.
He is said to have at least 38,000 supporters in France and elsewhere.
Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said the idea was “totally irresponsible”.
Cantona, an icon from his days at Manchester United, said in a video posted online: “The three million people in the street, they go to the bank, withdraw their money, and the banks collapse.
“That’s a real threat, there’s a real revolution.”
His appeal has spread through Facebook and YouTube.
Mr Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, said in response: “I have various feelings towards the financial sector but I find the operation you are referring to totally irresponsible.”
Joining the condemnation, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde remarked that citizens “do not have the savings he has”.
Olli Rehn, the EU’s powerful economic affairs commissioner and himself a former director of a Finnish first division club, said he considered himself a Man United fan.
But he added: “I think Mr Cantona is a better footballer than he is an economist.”
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