Emmanuel Macron is set to force an emergency EU summit by insisting that any delay to the Oct 31 Brexit deadline can last no longer than 15 days.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, has told EU leaders to support a three-month “flextension” until 31 January, 2020.

The French President’s hardline stance, designed to exert maximum pressure on MPs in London to back the deal, has horrified diplomats in Brussels, who fear the short delay raises the risk of an accidental no deal Brexit. But it will be a boon to Boris Johnson who has called for any Brexit extension to be as short as possible.

“We will see if a purely technical extension of a few days is justified, so that the British Parliament can complete its parliamentary procedure," said Amélie de Montchalin, France’s Europe Minister in Paris on Wednesday.

"An extension intended to win time or renegotiate the agreement is excluded,” she said, “We have lost too much time, we have reached an agreement and we must now implement it without delay."

A month long extension until November 30, a day before the new European Commission is due to take over from Jean-Claude Juncker’s EU executive, is also mooted as possible in Brussels, although that is seen as too short by many member states.