Brexit is killing off British industry, France’s prime minister claimed in parliament on Tuesday.

Gabriel Attal said Britain leaving the EU was behind the closure of the “last blast furnaces” in Britain.

Earlier this month Tata Steel confirmed it would close the remaining two blast furnaces at the UK’s largest steelworks by the end of the year. The plan will trigger the loss of up to 2,800 jobs at the Port Talbot site in south Wales.

France will go the same way and see its industry decline if it gives into the “sirens” of Marine Le Pen’s hard-Right National Rally (RN), Mr Attal added in comments he admitted would “pain” those who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum.

With European Parliament elections looming in June and the RN polling to come a full 10 points ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renew alliance, Mr Attal warned that RN’s desire to flout EU treaties would lead to Frexit by stealth.

“I say it, those who advocate ending the application of treaties are supporters of a disguised Frexit that would weaken France,” Mr Attal, 34, told the National Assembly during his general statement to MPs.

“Less Europe means less power for France. I’ll take just one example, and it will hurt some people. Brexit: its supporters promised happy days for the British economy and the British people,” he said.

“Last week, because of Brexit, the last blast furnaces in Great Britain closed. Steel is no longer produced in the UK. We in France, on the contrary, thanks in particular to investment from Europe, industry is coming back,” he insisted.

“Who were the first supporters in France of Brexit? Who named streets in the towns it runs “rue du Brexit”, who openly displayed itself with the leader of the Brexit camp? It’s the National Rally,” said Mr Attal, in comments likely to provoke fury across the Channel in some quarters.

In September, Britain in fact overtook France to become the eighth largest manufacturer in the world, according to analysis published by Make UK, the trade organisation representing British manufacturers.

As a result, it became the world’s eighth-largest manufacturer. Manufacturing jobs in the UK paid better than both the services sector and the economy as a whole, the analysis also found.

According to Make UK, in 2021 – the latest year for which global comparisons are available – UK manufacturing output was worth $272 billion, compared to $262 billion for France. Both were behind Italy on $314 billion.

While Make UK regards the rise in the export rankings as “encouraging”, it cautioned that this was only the third time since 2002 that the UK had been ranked higher than France and could not be attributed to a post-Brexit bounce or other specific factors.

The closure of Tata Steel’s blast furnaces came as a devastating blow to the 4,000-strong workforce at the Port Talbot site, which is expected to bear the brunt of the job losses. Tata employs about 8,000 people across the UK.

Under the plans, the company will invest £750 million towards the restructuring and building of a less carbon-intensive, electric arc furnace on the same site, backed by a £500 million Government grant.

Tata’s decision follows a similar move by British Steel, which last year said it would close its two remaining blast furnaces and build two electric arc furnaces. It said they could be operational by late 2025.

The closures will leave the UK as the only major economy without the ability to make primary steel from iron ore and coal. Tata will cut roughly 2,500 jobs over the next 18 months mainly through the closure of the blast furnaces and coke ovens. The company’s UK operations have been losing about £1.5 million a day.

Mr Attal took over as France’s youngest-ever prime minister three weeks ago and its first gay one. He has been embroiled in a nationwide farmers’ protest that has seen tractors besiege Paris and other major cities.

Mr Attal’s comments as the young leader is engaged in a bitter shadow boxing match with Jordan Bardella, the 29-year-old RN party leader who is heading the party’s European election campaign.

On Monday, Mr Bardella said that French farmers were suffering from “unfair international competition” and “punitive European green regulations”, proof, in his view, that “90 per cent of the problem lies in Brussels”.

The hard-Right leader said he was “not against the CAP”, the Common Agricultural Policy whose main recipient is France and whose budget he would like to reduce.

For him, “the issue is free trade agreements”, particularly with New Zealand and Mercosur, and above all the EU’s Green Deal, which will be “one of (my) two major campaign issues” along with the European migration pact.

In an interview with The Telegraph last month, Mr Bardella said he was “ready” to take over Mr Attal’s job as prime minister should Mr Macron call snap elections and lose.

He said that “patriots”, as he calls nationalists in his Identity and Democracy (ID) group, have the wind in their sails in Europe, galvanised by November general elections in the Netherlands, which handed a surprise win to Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration Freedom Party.

ID is now the sixth-largest in the EU assembly, also behind liberal, green and conservative groups, but current polling data place it in fourth position.

“We can create a minority blockage in the European Parliament,” said the RN leader.

The election, he said, would be a “referendum on immigration”, as well as Europe’s liberal agenda and its net zero drive at the expense of competitiveness.

But he said above all, European elections would be a “referendum” on Mr Macron himself.

“I see this election as a mid-term referendum on Macron halfway through his five-year mandate. It’s the only national election in that time. I say to the French: the party that comes first is the party that will be entrusted with preparing the post-Macron era.”