Emmanuel Macron and his government on Tuesday warned teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg that her “radical” stance risked “depressing a generation" after she singled out France at the UN.

The Swedish 16-year old green icon tore into world leaders at a UN climate summit on Monday, accusing them of betraying her generation by failing to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, repeating the words "How dare you" four times.

The same day, she and 15 other young activists filed a complaint at the UN against five countries, including France, for not doing enough to ward off global warming.

The complaint accused Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina and Turkey of failing to uphold their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed 30 years ago.

The largest polluters in the world - the United States, China and India - did not ratify the protocol. In a terse response,

President Macron criticised Greta's attack, saying: “There are lots of citizen’s actions that are useful. Here, such very radical positions are liable to antagonise our societies.”

He denied that the “French or German government” were blocking any green transition, saying they were “stopping our coal activities, our fossil fuel production”.