While in July he was credited with 5 per cent of voting intentions, the figures skyrocketed to 19 per cent in October, propelling him to the second round of voting in a head-to-head with President Emmanuel Macron even though he had not announced his candidacy.

Even as he was not an official candidate, his hardline rhetoric on immigration and sexist comments dominated the media and electoral calendar.

His focus on national sovereignty echoed a similar campaign by Donald Trump in the US and Brexit campaigners in Britain.

“Of course, we must regain our sovereignty, abandoned to the technocrats and European judges who have stripped the French people of their ability to decide their fate, in the name of the dreams of a Europe that will never be a nation,” Mr Zemmour said in his speech.

The pre-recorded announcement showed Mr Zemmour reading from his notes at a wooden desk in a library filled with red and green ancient books. In the background, a classical track by German composer Beethoven played.

As archive footage of 20th century France, of the General de Gaulle and extracts from historical movies picturing Jeanne d’Arc or Napoleon flashed on the screen, Mr Zemmour made a passionate eulogy to the country of cinema and enlightenment.

But a series of controversies over the past weeks, which culminated in an exchange of middle finger salutes with a passerby in Marseille over the weekend, have seen a larger share of French citizens declare they are “worried” about his bid.

Mr Zemmour, who was on a heated two-day visit to Marseille where he was welcomed by protesters, was captured in a car by an Agence France Presse photographer while returning the offensive gesture received from an unknown woman.

For good measure, he told the woman that his finger was designed to go “very deep”.

An Elabe poll last week had already seen him lose about 2 points to 12 per cent from two weeks ago and more established far-Right figure Marine Le Pen rising to between 20 and 22 per cent.

While his popularity in voting intention polls has dropped, he still regularly comes in third place behind the incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, and Ms Le Pen.

France elects its president across two rounds of voting, and Mr Macron is largely expected to make it to the second round.

But the outcome of the election could dramatically change in the next four months before the first round of voting. Famously in 2017, the frontrunner, Right-wing François Fillon, slipped out of the race just weeks before the vote after he was implicated in an embezzlement scandal.

Mr Zemmour’s announcement comes on the eve of the start of the party primary of Les Republicains, France’s major mainstream Right-wing party.

Challengers for the nomination, which include frontrunner Xavier Bertrand, former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and Paris region president Valérie Pécresse, have responded by toughening their language on immigration and identity.

He will hold his first official campaign rally at the Zenith in Paris on Sunday, a nearly 7,000-seat arena. The event has been fully booked, according to organisers, but several opposition groups have called on their militants to book spots and leave them unoccupied.