French president Emmanuel Macron has made a shock admission that the French public would “probably” vote to leave the European Union if given the chance in a referendum.

The globalist poster boy made the comments during an interview with BBC presenter Andrew Marr.

“You always take a risk when you have such a referendum, just ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ in a very complicated broadcast,” he told the broadcaster.

“If France had had a referendum it might have had the same result,” suggested Marr.

“Yeah, probably,” admitted the president — to the surprise of many observers.

The 40-year-old appeared to catch himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth, however, adding quickly: “Probably, in a similar context, but our context was very different, so I don’t want to make any, I mean, take any bets.”

He assured Marr that, in the event of a French referendum, he “would have fought very hard to win [for the European Union].”

The last time the French people were allowed a vote on the European Union was when they were asked to vote for the European Constitution in 2005, with 55 per cent of voters rejecting it.

(The Constitution was subsequently repackaged as the Lisbon Treaty and passed by the French government without a public vote.)

If France had held an EU referendum it "probably" would have been the same result – French President Emmanuel Macron tells #Marr https://t.co/Pz5uOsnrKV pic.twitter.com/FmaQSS66uC — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 21, 2018

Outlining his own take on the British context prior to the Brexit vote, Macron said it was his understanding that the “middle-classes and working-classes — and especially the oldest in your country — decided that the recent decades were not in their favour, and that the adjustments made by both [the] EU and globalisation — for me it was a mix of both of them — was not in their favour.

“And second, I think one of the reasons was precisely an organisation of our EU probably which gets too far in terms of freedom without cohesion. Towards free market without any rules and any convergence.”

He also suggested that the idea of a referendum on EU membership was wrongheaded regardless of the national context, however, saying: “It’s a mistake when you just ask ‘yes’ or ‘no’, when you don’t ask people how to improve the situation and to explain how to improve it.”

Emmanuel Bonaparte: Macron Declares He Will Govern Like a Roman God https://t.co/IQpkKgSIZs — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 4, 2017

Macron, who visibly fidgeted and bit his nails after the gaffe, became fearful of appearing in front of the press shortly after winning the presidency.

Eyebrows were raised in July 2017 when journalists were told that the president’s thoughts were “too complex” for members of the media, and ill-suited to questioner answer sessions.

Reuters News Agency subsequency reported his desire to be a “Jupiterian” president — “a remote, dignified figure, like the Roman god of gods, who weighs his rare pronouncements carefully”.

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery