In November 1963, Tixier-Vignancour publicly announced his candidacy for the 1965 presidential election, presenting himself as the "militant of all the nationalist parties whichever they may be". On 17 July 1964, he established the "Tixier-Vignancour committees" ("comités T.V."), a grassroots movement to support his candidacy for president the following year, with Jean-Marie Le Pen as a campaign director. Some 80 local "comités T.V." were set up throughout France and the Comité Jeunes ("Youth Committee"), directed by Roger Holeindre and supported by the group Occident, quickly attracted several hundred members. The first meeting in Paris gathered some 4,000 militants and led to violent clashes between Occident and the police. After a disagreement between Le Pen and Occident's founder Pierre Sidos, the movement was replaced with Dominique Venner's "Europe-Action" volunteers, despite their own initial skepticism regarding Tixier-Vignancour’s candidacy. Tixier-Vignancour managed to rally diverse leanings that existed within the far-right, all united against Gaullism: the young revolutionaries of Occident and "Europe-Action" were present, along with "those nostalgic for Vichy, descendants of Action Française, fundamentalist Catholics, "Algérie française" ultras, the residue of Poujadism, embryonic fascists, and representatives of the liberal right". Despite his conservative stance, the then president Charles de Gaulle embodied in their eyes "‘the loss of Algeria, the end of the Empire, the weakening of the army, and closer ties with the communist world." At the height of the campaign, Le Pen and Tixier-Vignancour even went to London to meet members of the British Conservative Party and potentially use it as an example for a new conservative-nationalist party in France. Tixier-Vignancour's movement participated in the municipal elections of March 1965 and received 9.6% of the votes in Paris. This encouraging result was followed, in the summer of 1965, by poll predictions crediting Tixier-Vignancour with 19% of the presidential vote. The latter began to imagine a first-round score of up to 25%, and a victory in the second round. Acting as if he was already president, Tixier-Vignancour traveled during the campaign to Saigon, Bonn, Rome and London.