(Above: Video of Eric Cantona’s interview where he recommends a run on the banks’ cash reserves.)

Eric Cantona – who probably looks thoroughly unfamiliar to most American readers, since he’s a soccer player, and you know the only football we’ll be talking about around the water cooler this morning is Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning – has galvanized a nation to make a one-day run on the banks as a statement. That nation is France, and that day is December 7th:

“We don’t pick up weapons to kill people to start the revolution. The revolution is really easy to do these days. What’s the system? The system is built on the power of the banks. So it must be destroyed through the banks.

“This means that the three million people with their placards on the streets, they go to the bank and they withdraw their money and the banks collapse. Three million, 10 million people, and the banks collapse and there is no real threat. A real revolution.

“We must go to the bank. In this case there would be a real revolution. It’s not complicated; instead of going on the streets and driving kilometres by car you simply go to the bank in your country and withdraw your money, and if there are a lot of people withdrawing their money the system collapses. No weapons, no blood, or anything like that.”

Naturally, the French Banking Federation thinks the idea is merde, and dismisses it as “totally idiotic” because the role of a bank is to “keep money safe,” a task at which banks have excelled in the last few years.

There are allegedly about 14,000 participants committed to cashing out in France, and the article also says people in the UK are taking interest, as well. (Again, not expecting this to take off in the US unless Tom Brady gets behind the idea.)

ETA – As pointed out by a reader, Cantona’s bank run was a fail — banks claim it was shop as usual on the 8th. Oh, and it’s worth noting – the credibility of his whole campaign was probably kind of shot when it was pointed out that his wife, Rachida Brakni, had been paid several thousand euros to star in an ad for – yep, you guessed it – a BANK. Oops.

If he had gotten more buy-in, i’m not sure what would’ve happened on December 8th – maybe Eric Cantona would have started his own bank where any lending officer who attempts to engage in usury gets punched in the face, who knows.

Additional resources: the official Bank Run 2010 website (so glad there’s an English version, French is the one language I fail at epically, thx guys)