A small group of activists in Paris emptied their bank accounts Tuesday after a call by French soccer icon Eric Cantona to protest practices by leading banks and bailouts.
It did not appear to prompt the huge bank runs that some Internet-based anti-capitalist groups had hoped for, however, and bankers and some economists warned against heeding the call. Cantona has also come in for criticism.
Activists have seized on former Manchester United star Cantona's call in October for depositors to empty their bank accounts. They suggest signing up with cooperative banks and rejecting major banks that were given bailouts and that are often blamed for the global financial crisis.
About a dozen people marched in costumes Tuesday in Paris and withdrew money from a branch of Societe Generale. They then opened accounts with a nearby branch of Credit Cooperatif bank, considered more ethically responsible because it pledges not to have any subsidiaries in tax havens.
In an interview with Presse Ocean last month that has since become a YouTube hit, Cantona said millions of people could help to spark a revolution by withdrawing all their money from their accounts.
Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Cantona should concentrate on soccer and stop ''intervening in finance (and) economics, especially when he doesn't fully understand the mechanics of it.''
Others were equally skeptical that his idea would work.
''An employee who wanted to live just on cash would have a much harder life, even just to get his salary,'' Pierre Boquet, a member of the French Banking Federation, said Tuesday on France-Info radio.
''You can't get your wages in cash, or get welfare benefits (in cash),'' Boquet added. ''It's a daily form of security not to have money under your table - that was the 19th century.''
Cantona thrilled English soccer fans when he joined the fledgling Premier League in an era when foreign players of his caliber were still rare. Cantona also had a panache that could border on arrogance.
He always played with his collars up and his chest thrust out. He was banned for attempting a karate kick as he launched feet first at a Crystal Palace fan in the crowd, insulted former France coach Henri Michel live on television, and branded French jury members ''idiots'' after getting in trouble during a spell playing for Nimes.
While some ordinary bank customers followed his proclamation, the soccer star-turned-actor - who recently parodied his United career in a film called ''Looking for Eric'' - was nowhere to be seen.
He had not appeared by the afternoon on a film set in the town of Albert in northern France, where he has been shooting a new movie. Filming continued without him, as did protests in Paris.
Le Figaro newspaper reported Tuesday that he recently transferred €750,000 ($1 million) from a private account into a new Credit Agricole account.
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Associated Press writer Crystal Becerril in Paris contributed to this report.
