Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, December 11, 2020 in Paris.

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Stephane Lemouton-POOL / SIPA

The French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, estimated Monday that the British would be "the big losers" of Brexit, which will cut the national wealth of France by only 0.1 percentage point in 2021.

“The big losers from Brexit will be the British.

The nation that will emerge weakened from Brexit is Great Britain, ”said Bruno Le Maire on France Info radio.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Sunday that a failure in trade negotiations over the UK's conditions for leaving the EU was the "most likely" scenario.

"Not much compared to the overall commercial volume of France"

"In the event of a + no deal + the losers will be the British, we don't lose much", according to the French minister.

For "France, trade to Great Britain is about 33 billion euros, it is not much compared to the overall trade volume of France", he detailed.

"Our assessment is that the impact of Brexit on the French economy will be 0.1 point (percentage) of our national wealth in 2021," he added.

The services of the Ministry of the Economy specified that this calculation was valid in the event of an agreement or in the absence of a trade agreement, the difference in impact on the French gross domestic product (GDP) being "minimal".

“In France, we will have some sectors that are very hard hit and they will need all our support”, such as fishing, whose activity is “fundamental”, in particular for “a few towns” on the coast such as Boulogne-sur-mer (Pas -de-Calais), or Le Guilvinec (Finistère), he said.

"Brexit [...] is madness"

He added that "we will also have 150,000 companies exporting to Great Britain that will be affected, which we have been supporting for months, which we are helping to complete customs procedures."

Brexit is political, economic and historical madness.

# 8h30franceinfo pic.twitter.com/xYPuEyrCQf

- Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) December 14, 2020

"Brexit, to use a very simple expression of John Le Carré to whom I take this opportunity to pay tribute, is madness", Bruno Le Maire said again about the British author of spy novels who died on Saturday in age 89.

"I regret that my British friends have to pay the price, because they pay the price of populism, they pay the price of lies," he said.

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