A former French prime minister has angrily called on Britain to leave the European Union - to stop it dying.

Michel Rocard said the UK had only joined the EU to help big business - and called on it to leave before it caused further damage.

Mr Rocard also accused David Cameron of 'pretending' to want to leave - and of provoking a crisis in order to serve the interest of Britain’s banks.

Former French Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard, being greeted here by the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at Number 10 in 1988, has called on Britain to regain its 'elegance' by quitting the EU

In a scathing article in the French newspaper Le Monde said: 'So leave, then, before you destroy everything.'

The remarks by the 83-year-old Rocard comes amid growing anger of Mr Cameron's bid to block the former Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker from running the European Commission.

Mr Junker is the lead candidate of the biggest group in the European Parliament - the Conservative European People's Party - which scopped the most seats in last week's European elections.

Mr Cameron has publicly opposed the nomination of Mr Juncker, whose European People’s Party. France said before the election that the leading candidate of whichever party won the vote should be put forward for the job.

The PM has dismissed a report in Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that claimed he had threatened at an EU summit last week to bring forward a referendum on British membership of the EU if Mr Juncker became Commission president.

The latest fall out between Europe and the UK threatens to turn nasty, the former French PM claimed.

Former Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard spent 15 years in the European Parliament after leaving French politics

Princess Diana appeared to have charmed Mr Rocard on a visit in Paris in 1988 - but the former French PM said Britain had lost its esteem in the eyes of Europe

He said: 'Between you and us, the continental Europeans, there is a disagreement that is turning ugly. Europe is dying from it.'

The Socialist Rocard has been a backer of closer European integration since the bloc’s founding in the decade after World War Two and spent 15 years as a member of European parliament after leaving French politics in 1997.

He said Britain had lost the respect of its neighbours in Europe over its position on Europe.

The former PM wrote: 'There was a time when being British was synonymous with elegance. Let us rebuild Europe. Regain your elegance and you will regain our esteem.'

Britain – which joined the EU, then known as the European Economic Community, in 1973 after France’s General Charles de Gaulle had resisted a previous attempt to enter the bloc – has long been accused by some of the zone’s founder members of seeking to slow down European political union.

Mr Cameron has vowed to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the union in 2017.