By Peter Allen In Paris and John Hall for MailOnline

Published: 06:58 EST, 10 September 2015 | Updated: 07:18 EST, 10 September 2015

French football legend Eric Cantona has launched a furious attack on Western governments for creating the global migrant crisis, adding that he plans to invite refugees to live with him.

Saying he was ready to open up his own luxury home to foreign arrivals, the former Manchester United star said: 'We create wars for economic reasons and then people flee countries because we've created chaos and we're not even able to receive them.'

The 49-year-old, who is now an actor, has been disgusted by a rise in xenophobia stirred up by right wing politicians in his home country and abroad.

Asked by Le Parisien newspaper if he would take people in, 'King Eric' said: 'Of course, certainly, and it would be good if the 65 million French people would all be willing to accept them.'

Cantona, a former Socialist voter, made it clear that he had lost confidence in the entire political class, especially President Francois Hollande.

'I voted for him in 2012 but I will spoil my ballot in 2017,' said Cantona, referring to the next ballot to elect a head of state in two years' time.

Saying that the Socialists had also swung to the right, Cantona said: 'We don't want to welcome too many migrants because 55 per cent of French people are against it and because the National Front are rising in popularity, we venture on to their ground.'

Since shocking photographs emerged of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi lying drowned on a Turkish beach, countries such as France and Britain have pledged to take in thousands of new refugees, but opposition to such moves is still rife.

Cantona - whose paternal family settled in Marseille having left Sardinia, and whose maternal side had been Catalan separatists - is not the only public figure to offer to house refugees.

Over the weekend, Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila told national broadcaster YLE that starting in 2016 he would offer his home in Kempele, in northern Finland, to house asylum seekers.

'We should all take a look in the mirror and ask how we can help,' he reportedly said, adding that a plan to distribute refugees should be voluntary, though he hoped his country could set an example.

Last week Bob Geldof said that he would also accommodate four refugee families in his London and Kent homes as Europe struggles comes to terms with the scale of the humanitarian crisis.

The Boomtown Rats singer told Irish radio that he felt sick at seeing images of Aylan body, adding 'I look at it with profound shame and a monstrous betrayal of who we are and what we wish to be.'

Meanwhile an elderly Italian woman has spoken of the pleasure she took in opening up her home to several young Syrian refugees recently.

Pensioner Misa Chiavari told La Repubblica: 'I welcomed desperate migrants, and today they are happy. They gave me joy,'

'I'm not looking for publicity, I just

----- snip -----

read full article at source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3229116/Football-legend-Eric-Cantona-reveals-plans-invite-desperate-refugees-live-home-blames-Western-governments-creating-global-migrant-crisis.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490