Liz Truss's policies responsible for Britain's financial 'disaster', suggests French finance minister

France's finance minister has slammed Liz Truss's economic policies for causing a "disaster" of high borrowing rates for Britain. 

The fiscal plan, set out by Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor, prompted a crisis of confidence in the UK, hammering the value of the pound and government bond prices and jolting global markets.

"I'm not worried about the situation in the eurozone," Bruno Le Maire told Europe 1 radio, when asked about the risk of the crisis spreading. "On the other hand, I am worried about the British situation.

"What does it show? It shows firstly that there are costs for financial and economic policies." 

Mr Kwarteng's mini-Budget announced last Friday included major tax cuts that would need to be financed by extra borrowing, spooking investors who immediately questioned the credibility of the policies and Britain's financial standing. 

"When you take on major costs like that, with spectacular announcements, as some opposition parties want to do in France, it perturbs the markets. It perturbs financial balances," said Mr Le Maire.

"And it leads to a real disaster with interest rates which are 4.5 per cent or even higher in Great Britain. 

"We have interest rates which are reasonable, which are quite close to Germany's because there is consistency in our economic and financial policymaking."

Referring to Brexit, he added: "The second thing is that leaving Europe comes with a considerable cost because Europe is a protection."

The pound fell to an all-time low against the dollar earlier this week, and the yield on 10-year British government bonds - which sets the cost of borrowing for the government - briefly rose to above 4.5 per cent on Wednesday.

That led the Bank of England to intervene with a £65 billion emergency bond-buying programme to stabilise the market.

Mr Le Maire has been under pressure this week to explain his own budget choices, with the French government planning to borrow a record €270 billion next year and a run a deficit of five per cent of GDP.

Some analysts believe the deficit will be higher because of Mr Le Maire's optimistic growth forecast for the economy and assumptions about savings from a controversial pensions reform that has not yet been passed by parliament.

French-British relations have been rocky for years, particularly under Boris Johnson, with a host of issues souring ties from Brexit and fishing rights to migrants.

French ministers had been reluctant to comment on Ms Truss since she came to power, despite deep concerns about her Brexit policies and her statement that she did not know if French President Emmanuel Macron was a "friend or foe".