French far-right media pundit Eric Zemmour will announce on Tuesday he is running for president in next year's election, according to an email sent to his supporters.
Zemmour, 63, has dominated the pre-election calendar with his strident language and knocked Marine Le Pen aside as Emmanuel Macron's challenger.
Since making a dramatic political entrance in September, the married father-of-three has hit the headlines for pointing a rifle at a reporter, sticking his middle finger up at a female heckler, and for a secret lovechild with his 28-year-old PA.
He even went on trial in Paris earlier this month for calling migrants 'thieves, rapists and murderers' and has two previous convictions for spreading racial hatred.
'Tomorrow on Tuesday, around midday, Eric Zemmour will announce to you, live, his candidacy,' said the email sent to supporters late Monday.
Eric Zemmour, 63, (pictured in Marseille on Saturday) has dominated the pre-election calendar with his strident language and knocked Marine Le Pen aside as Emmanuel Macron's challenger
Married Zemmour tried in vain to have the news he is expecting a baby with his 28-year-old PA Sarah Knafo (pictured with him in Marseille) out of the papers
Zemmour is up against Marine Le Pen, far-right Rassemblement National party leader (right), to get into the second round of the presidential election. Both are looking to usurp the current centrist French President Emmanuel Macron (left)
Though Zemmour has previously teased his ambitions, the official announcement will confirm that he believes he has the finances and backing to dislodge Macron and outshine veteran far-right leader Le Pen in next April's election.
A member of his entourage told AFP on Monday that 'a message to the French will be broadcast on our social networks' at around noon on Tuesday, before Zemmour goes on TF1 television.
Several members of his inner circle started tweeting using the hashtag #Zemmourcandidat (Zemmour candidate).
He is due to hold his first official campaign meeting on Sunday morning in Paris - anti-fascists and unions have already pledged to hold a 'silence Zemmour' protest at 1pm in the French capital.
Dubbed the 'French Trump', last Friday it was revealed that he is to have a baby with his PA, Sarah Knafo, after he took legal action against the Closer magazine to prevent them from running the story.
The privacy application was thrown out of court and the magazine ran with the headline: 'He's going to be a daddy in 2022'.
In a previous issue in October, Closer featured a photo of Zemmour with a picture of his wife, lawyer Mylene Chichportich, whom he married in 1982.
The couple have three grown-up children together, leading to journalists claiming there was public interest in knowing about his relationship with Knafo.
It has also been speculated that Knafo's presence at Zemmour's side - she has frequently been pictured at campaign events - will make him appear more virile to voters.
Acid-tongued Zemmour is hoping his radical pitch on curbing immigration and Islam in France will appeal to conservatives in a country riven with racial and religious tensions.
He has also popularised a conspiracy theory backed by white supremacists known as 'the great replacement theory' which posits that native Europeans are being deliberately replaced by immigrants from
