France would have probably voted to leave the European Union if it had staged a referendum on membership, its president has said.
Emmanuel Macron said he believed Britain backed Brexit because “a lot of losers” of globalisation had “decided it was no more for them”.
Going to voters with a Yes/No vote on a “complicated” issue is always a “risk”, he said.
“You always take a risk when you have such a referendum, just yes or no in a very complicated context,” Mr Macron told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr show.
Asked whether France would have returned the same result, he replied: “Yes. Probably, in a similar context but our context was very different, so I don’t want to take any bets. I would have definitely fought very hard to win.
“But I think it is a mistake to just ask yes or no when you don’t ask people how to improve the situation and to explain how to improve it.”