France election: De Villepin to stand for president
The long-time rival of incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy made his announcement on French TV.
Mr Sarkozy himself has not formally declared a bid for re-election but is widely expected to do so.
France's Socialist opposition recently elected Francois Hollande as their candidate for the presidency.
Recent opinion polls suggested Mr de Villepin, 58, would only get 1 or 2% of the vote.
His candidacy will certainly annoy the president because he will take away precious votes in the first round of the election at the end of April, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
But it is hard to see him as a serious contender as many of his former friends and allies have moved over to President Sarkozy's camp, our correspondent adds.
Furthermore, he has just been named in a corruption enquiry, accused of putting pressure on a businessman not to give information to the police that might implicate one of his friends.
Nadine Morano, the election chief of Mr Sarkozy's governing UMP party, called on Mr de Villepin to abandon his bid and "back Mr Sarkozy instead".
'Divided again'
Mr de Villepin is presenting himself as a candidate above party politics, correspondents say. He recently set up a new political movement, United Republic (French: Republique solidaire), which contains members of the UMP.
"I want to reunite all the French, those on the left, those on the right, and those in the centre," he told the TF1 channel.
"I intend to defend a certain idea of France," Mr de Villepin; Kazinform cites BBC.
To learn more go to www.bbc.co.uk
