Christian Noyer said claims financial companies would have to move jobs to nations in the EU after Britain leaves had been overblown. 

He told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme this morning: “Twenty years ago London was already the first financial centre and Paris was much more important.

“Many banks had concentrated their forces in London which had tens or sometimes hundreds of staff in Paris before.

“So if that goes back to where we were 20 years ago it is not a catastrophe for the City.”

Mr Noyer, a former Bank of France governor, was employed by the French government back in 2016 in a bid to defend the nation’s interests during exit talks. 

His remarks fly in the face of doom-mongers who claim thousands of jobs would be forced out of the UK to across the continent because of Brexit. 

It comes after Philip Lane, a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council and governor of the Central Bank of Ireland, said Brexit poses a bigger risk to the European Union rather than Britain’s financial stability.

He described London as “the wholesale headquarters” of the EU. 

Mr Lane also warned a hard Brexit would send "genuine" shockwaves through the single currency eurozone. 

He told the Financial Times: “The City of London is the wholesale headquarters of the EU. 

“If there is a genuine shock and we have a Brexit without a transition period, then that is a financial stability risk.”