The French government is concerned that Boris Johnson’s aide Dominic Cummings is a “Maoist” who will pursue a revolutionary no-deal Brexit that sees Britain benefit economically from leaving the EU.

A note of diplomatic briefings by French officials, circulating in London, says that Cummings’s taste for radical change could see adjustments to the economy that would alter the balance of power in Europe.

“There is unease regarding Cummings’s Maoism and what economic transformation in the UK could mean for long-term geopolitical relations,” the note reads.

French officials have briefed politicians and business leaders that the government in Paris believes that a no-deal Brexit is the “most likely scenario”.

Their assessment is that even a new withdrawal agreement that modified the Northern Ireland backstop would not