Francois [sic] Hollande: 'I Am Not Dangerous'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: French Socialist leader François Hollande took his battle against finance to the lion’s den yesterday on a trip to London in which the French Socialist presidential frontrunner defended his plans to regulate finance but told the 300,000 French expatriates of “Paris-on-Thames” to vote for him in April and May.

Mr Hollande’s first foreign trip this year came a day after he pledged to slap a 75 per cent tax on people who earn more than a million euros a year, telling the rich to consider the punitive rate “patriotism”.

At his campaign launch in January, Mr Hollande singled out finance as his “greatest enemy”, leading London mayor Boris Johnson to tell French expatriates: “Bienvenue à Londres. This is the global capital of finance…If your own president does not want the jobs, the opportunities and the economic growth that you generate, we do.”

As he stepped off the Eurostar yesterday Mr Hollande was asked whether he had any message for the City of London.

Replying in English, the Socialist replied: “We must have more regulation.”

Since the launch, Mr Hollande has told British journalists that the City of London has nothing to fear from a Socialist French president who will seek to regulate, not kill off finance. » | Henry Samuel | Wednesday, February 29, 2012