Vive l'Angleterre! Entrepreneurship may be a French word but it is the British who put it into practice, says top French car boss

Peugeot CEO Maxime Picat says there are 'great opportunities' in UK

UK better at 'managing unemployment', says Mr Picat ahead of car launch

IMP predicts French growth would be 1% this year, and the UK 2.9%

UK car production has overtaken that of France for first time since the 1960s

One of France’s top bosses has praised Britain’s business-friendly policies – and claimed his homeland has lost its ‘culture of entrepreneurship’.

Maxime Picat, the chief executive of Peugeot, praised the recovery in this country and said there were ‘great opportunities’ in the UK for business.

‘Entrepreneurship is a French word,’ he said. ‘But it is the British who put it into practice. Vive l’Angleterre.’

Maxime Picat, the chief executive of Peugeot, has praised Britain¿s business-friendly policies ¿ and claimed his homeland has lost its 'culture of entrepreneurship'

Mr Picat praised the recovery in this country and said there were 'great opportunities' in the UK for business

Mr Picat, one of France’s most influential industrialists, also criticised his country’s inflexible labour market and the number of strikes there.

He was speaking just before the international launch of Peugeot’s latest model in London. Asked why he thought the British economy was performing better than the French, Mr Picat told the Mail: ‘There is a culture of entrepreneurship in Britain…we’ve lost that.

‘Then there are great opportunities. It’s easy to find a job. You have a flexible labour market. We don’t. There are strikes in France.’

He said the UK was better at ‘managing unemployment’ and had more ‘flexible labour policies’ which allowed the economy to thrive. ‘When the market is recovering, the UK is able to recover faster,’ he said. ‘Economic growth in the UK is proof of that. The UK grabs opportunities faster.’

Militant: Workers from the French national railway SNCF march through Marseille yesterday as part of a national rail strike

Criticism: Mr Picat, one of France's most influential industrialists, also criticised his country's inflexible labour market and the number of strikes there

While the UK economy has gone from strength to strength in recent months, France’s has all but ground to a halt under Socialist President Francois Hollande, who now has the lowest approval rating of any French president on record.

The IMF has predicted French growth would be only 1 per cent this year and 1.5 per cent in 2015. It expects growth of 2.9 per cent and 2.5 per cent in Britain.

French public spending is among the highest in the world and is due to hit 57 per cent of national output this year. Its six million state employees make up a fifth of the workforce, while their salaries account for a quarter of public spending.

'The UK has a flexible Labour market. We don't. It is recovering faster. It grabs opportunities. It is dynamic' Maxime Picat Peugeot chief executive

The IMF has told the government to start cutting the bloated public sector, saying France’s tax rises had ‘weighed on the capacity of the economy to grow’.

The high tax rate of 75 per cent for top earners in France has led to many of them coming to the UK.

Some 300,000 ambitious French people now live in Britain – many in London. Mr Picat added: ‘London and the UK is a great place to live, work and study. It is particularly dynamic.’ Mr Picat also said he thought Britain’s position on the EU was ‘more realistic’.

He suggested that the lack of democratic accountability of the ‘Brussels administrators’ was partly responsible for the success of the far-Right Front National in France in the European elections.

‘Only two weeks after that very strong signal, they think that European politics is back to business as usual. It’s not,’ he said.

Mr Picat made his comments as Peugeot held its first ever global international car launch in the UK – that of the new, more upmarket, 508. The UK is Peugeot’s third largest market after France and China.

Peugeot bosses said the London launch date of June 18 was ‘significant’ – chosen because that was the date in 1940 on which exiled Free French wartime leader General De Gaulle used the BBC to broadcast his call to arms to fight on despite the French government’s impending armistice with the Nazi invaders.

Launch: Tennis star Novak Djokovic with the new Peugeot 508 at the car's London launch

Market: Mr Picat made his comments as Peugeot held its first ever global international car launch in the UK ¿ that of the new, more upmarket, 508

Peugeot stopped building cars in Britain in December 2006 when it closed the Ryton plant in Coventry, though its UK headquarters remain in the city.

Nevertheless, UK car production has now overtaken that of France for the first time since the 1960s.