The majority of citizens from a string of European countries want the UK to remain in the European Union, according to a major poll released in French media on Friday - including 55 per cent of Britons who took part.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly given their historic reluctance to grant it EU entry, the French are the least keen on Britain voting “remain” in a referendum on June 23.

The message from the Odoxa poll conducted for le Parisien, France Info and MCI, is clear: they all want Britain to stay inside the EU.

“Les Anglais hors d’Europe? No Thanks!” (The (British) outside Europe? No Thanks!) wrote Le Parisien, which published the poll on Friday morning.

In the Odoxa poll conducted between February 19 and 25, some 4,277 people from five EU countries – Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Italy – were asked whether or not they were “in favour of the UK remaining inside the European Union”.