The largest selling British newspaper, The Sun, has made an outspoken attack on the German finance minister, Oscar Lafontaine, as part of its campaign against the European Single Currency.

Next to a front-page picture of a smiling Mr Lafontaine, the Sun asks,"Is this the most dangerous man in Europe?".

The paper tells its ten million readers that Mr Lafontaine is the biggest threat to the British way of life since 1945; it says he wants to abolish the pound and make ordinary British people pay higher taxes and interest rates.

The attack has been reproduced in a special German edition of the paper.