The Work and Pensions Secretary warned that Left-wing candidate Francois Hollande’s high tax policies would drive hard-pressed French taxpayers across the Channel.
Mr Hollande, favourite to beat French President Nicolas Sarkozy in today’s final round of the presidential election, has pledged to introduce a top tax rate of 75 per cent.
Slim hope: Nicolas Sarkozy, left, was just four points away his rival Francoise Hollande in the final opinion poll
‘London is already one of the largest French cities in Europe and I think an awful lot of French people will want to come to London.’
The capital is often referred to as France’s sixth city due to its huge expatriate population, including more than 70,000 French voters who were courted by Mr Hollande on a campaign trip in February.
Warning: Iain Duncan Smith believes French
presidential candidate Francoise Holland would 'put a further burden' on
French taxpayers if voted in
Mr Duncan Smith also seized on Mr Hollande’s desire to promote spending over austerity and renegotiate the Brussels pact imposing budget discipline on eurozone countries.
He said: ‘Francois Hollande says he’s going to come out and spend money. He’s going to raise tax and do everything he says that will suddenly change the French economy.
‘That will have a shockwave effect in Europe. It could cause major ructions with Germany, and the European Central Bank could find itself in difficulty.’
Mr Duncan Smith’s intervention comes amid suggestions that David Cameron will have to build bridges with Mr Hollande, if he wins, after failing to meet him during a campaign trip to London.
Ahead of today’s contest, all polls suggested Mr Hollande, a self-proclaimed ‘enemy of finance’, is set to beat Right-wing rival Mr Sarkozy.
The latest poll showed the socialist’s lead narrowing at 52-48, but those four points would be enough to see the 57-year-old become France’s first socialist head of state for 17 years.
Mr Sarkozy has said Mr Hollande ‘would lead France to bankruptcy’ and branded him ‘a liar’ during a live TV debate last week.
In return, Mr Hollande has portrayed the President as an increasingly extreme Right-wing opportunist who is interested only in looking after the rich. Mr Sarkozy, also 57, was today at the Paris home of his wife, Carla Bruni, with their six-month-old baby, Giulia.
Close: Mr Hollande, pictured visiting a street
market in Tulle with his partner Valerie Trierweiler, is tipped to be
the first Socialist leader in two decades after 46million people cast
their vote today
Hope: Mr Hollande is greeted by a florist as he visits a street market in Tulle, where he served as mayor
Nervous: Mr Hollande said he was anxious for victory as he wandered though the market
Popular: A cheese seller greets Mr Hollande in the town where he is popular
She will become the first unmarried Premiere Dame in French history if Mr Hollande is elected.
Mr Hollande won the first round of the election two weekends ago, with 28.63 per cent of the votes compared with 27.18 per cent for Mr Sarkozy.
Voting begins: French citizens living in Canada
arrive to vote Saturday at a polling station in Montreal. Polling
stations in France opened this morning
Eager: A queue for the polling station in
Montreal, which has the largest French population in North America, with
44,000 registered voters
Overseas effort: A French citizen living in
Uruguay votes at the French consulate in Montevideo. French citizens
living in the UK will have the chance to vote today in London and
Edinburgh
International presence: A woman leaves a polling station in Remire-Montjoly, French Guyana
At his last rally on Friday in the southern city of Toulon, Mr Sarkozy repeated his view that there are ‘too many immigrants in France’ and that ‘integration was not working’.
Mr Hollande said he wanted a big win so his Left-wing programme would have a clear mandate.
Support: President Nicolas Sarkozy greets
supporters as he leaves his last campaign rally in Les Sables-d'Olonne,
western France, on Friday
He added: ‘If the French people must
make a choice, they should do so clearly, overwhelmingly, so the winner
has the capacity and means to act.’Mr Sarkozy, who became the first sitting president of modern times to finish second in a presidential first round vote, must overcome high disapproval rates because of his abrasive style.
If he did win, it would be a political sensation after a whirlwind campaign by the man many voters blame for stubbornly high unemployment, running at a 12-year high of nearly 10 per cent, and France's stagnant economy.
Mr Sarkozy was due to spend today at home in Paris with his wife, former supermodel Carla Bruni, while Mr Hollande visited a market in Tulle, the town in central France where he was mayor for seven years.
Defiant: Mr Sarkozy, speaking at the rally, has helped narrow polls with aggressive campaigning in recent days
‘The inhabitants of Tulle won't miss me ... They will be reassured to have me as president.’
Mr Sarkozy made an impassioned final plea to France's 46 million voters on Friday, saying the election's outcome was balanced on a ‘razor's edge’.
He warned that a Socialist victory could send the euro zone's second largest economy spiraling into rising deficits and debt, like Greece.
‘On Sunday, anything is possible’ wrote left-leaning Liberation on its front page, noting that while Hollande remained the clear favorite, Mr Sarkozy was catching up fast.
The election campaign was knocked sideways by a shock performance by National Front candidate Marine Le Pen, who came third in the April 22 first round with 18 per cent of votes, prompting Sarkozy to shift his campaign rhetoric to the right.
