Britain should leave Europe because it is killing the European Union dream, a former French Prime Minister has said.
In a blistering attack, Michel Rocard, a grandee of the French Socialist Party who served as premier under Francois Mitterrand, identified Britain as the source of all the EU's problems.
"Britain is a great country that has always refused to allow Europe to interfere in its affairs. It has blocked any further integration," he told Trombinoscope, a French parliamentary magazine.
"If they go, it becomes possible to respond to the needs of governing in Europe.
Even Germany realises this and demands it. I hope for it a lot because they have prevented it from developing, they killed it."
Mr Rocard, 83, said that it was clear that the "British people want to end with Europe" and are only prevented from leaving the EU by Britain's political and financial classes.
"British elites are afraid of the isolation that would result, that may weaken the City [of London]," he said.
Mr Rocard's views echo those of Jacques Delors, the former Socialist president of the European Commission, who in 2012 also called for Britain to leave the EU.
France has been dismayed by David Cameron's demands for powers to be returned from Brussels to national parliaments and for the pledge in EU treaties of "ever closer union" to be removed.
According to senior diplomats, Paris has been angered by private talks where the Prime Minister has warned that unless there is reform "the parting of the ways becomes pretty inevitable".
France, and others, are hostile to treaty change and the ensuing clamour for national referenda that will quickly become votes on the unpopular euro.
Paris is also a defender of the idea of "ever closer union" because it is seen as an unbreakable bond cementing Germany into the euro.
telegraph.co.uk
In a blistering attack, Michel Rocard, a grandee of the French Socialist Party who served as premier under Francois Mitterrand, identified Britain as the source of all the EU's problems.
"Britain is a great country that has always refused to allow Europe to interfere in its affairs. It has blocked any further integration," he told Trombinoscope, a French parliamentary magazine.
"If they go, it becomes possible to respond to the needs of governing in Europe.
Even Germany realises this and demands it. I hope for it a lot because they have prevented it from developing, they killed it."
Mr Rocard, 83, said that it was clear that the "British people want to end with Europe" and are only prevented from leaving the EU by Britain's political and financial classes.
"British elites are afraid of the isolation that would result, that may weaken the City [of London]," he said.
Mr Rocard's views echo those of Jacques Delors, the former Socialist president of the European Commission, who in 2012 also called for Britain to leave the EU.
France has been dismayed by David Cameron's demands for powers to be returned from Brussels to national parliaments and for the pledge in EU treaties of "ever closer union" to be removed.
According to senior diplomats, Paris has been angered by private talks where the Prime Minister has warned that unless there is reform "the parting of the ways becomes pretty inevitable".
France, and others, are hostile to treaty change and the ensuing clamour for national referenda that will quickly become votes on the unpopular euro.
Paris is also a defender of the idea of "ever closer union" because it is seen as an unbreakable bond cementing Germany into the euro.
telegraph.co.uk
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