Early life

Although it has been suggested that he was born in Paris, Cantona was actually born in Marseille to Albert Cantona and Eleonore Raurich. The family home was a cave in one of the hills in the Caillols area of Marseille, between the city's 11th and 12th arrondissements, and it was rumoured to have been used as a look-out post for the German army towards the end of the Second World War. The site was chosen in the mid-1950s by Cantona's paternal grandmother, Lucienne, whose husband, Joseph, was a stonemason. By the time Cantona was born in 1966, the hillside cave had become little more than a room in the family's house, which was now up to a liveable standard. Cantona has two brothers: Jean-Marie, who is four years older; and Joël, who is 17 months younger.
Cantona came from a family of immigrants: his paternal grandfather, Joseph, had immigrated to Marseille from Sardinia, while his mother's parents had been from Catalonia (Spain). Pedro Raurich, Cantona's maternal grandfather, a Republican, was fighting against the Nationalist army of General Franco, in the Spanish Civil War in 1938 when he suffered a serious injury to his liver, and he had to retreat to France for medical treatment with his wife Paquita. The Raurichs stayed in Saint-Priest, Ardèche, before settling in Marseille