FRANCE’S finance minister says it needs our trade and will fight for us to get a frictionless deal – but insisted financial services could not be covered by a free-trade agreement

Bruno Le Maire praised Theresa May's speech and said there had to be a “good deal” with the UK – saying Paris wants “to keep a very strong, a very positive relationship with the UK”.

It comes after a Hungarian minister urged the EU against punishing Britain last night, and stressed that failed Brussels politics led to Brexit.

But Mr Le Maire said the particular circumstances of the financial services industry meant it could not be covered within the scope of a free-trade agreement and the "best solution" would be for equivalence, where both sides recognise each other's standards.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme "We need a good deal.

"But once again we have to avoid any misunderstanding between the British people and the French people, between the UK and the EU.

"Financial services cannot be in a free-trade agreement, for many reasons – for reasons of stability, for the sake of supervision because there are some very specific rules for financial services."

His comments came after Stefaan De Rynck, an aide to the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michael Barnier, warned Mrs May she could struggle to get a Brexit deal which includes the UK's lucrative financial sector.

In her Mansion House speech on Friday, the Prime Minister set out her plans for Britain and the EU to access each other's financial markets based on a commitment to maintaining the same "regulatory outcomes".

Mr Le Maire, who was in London for a meeting with Chancellor Philip Hammond, said: "We want to keep a very strong, a very positive relationship with the UK, but the British people decided to leave the EU and we have to draw the consequences of that sovereign decision from the British people.

"But it does not mean that we want a hard Brexit; we want a fair Brexit which will be in the interest of both the UK and the EU."

The French minister’s comments came after Hungary broke ranks last night to praise the PM and warned Brussels it must drop any attempt to punish Britain in the negotiations.

Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary’s Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, said the EU needed to recognise its own failings caused the UK to leave.

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Speaking on a visit to London, he said Hungary and the UK are “on common ground” over how Brexit negotiations should proceed in a pragmatic way.

He said: “We really understand each other. We have always maintained that there will be different kinds of approaches to how Brexit negotiations should be done, but we believe a fair Brexit is the best solution that should come to everybody’s minds.

“Don’t think of punishing, especially if it is on behalf of Brussels.”

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