France has slipped down the rankings as a global industrial power it's state auditor has said

Frances state auditor The Cour des Compte said that the country has “been exposed to a greater de-industrialisation trend than its main partners” between 2004 and 2019 and has slipped down the rankings as a global industrial power.

This is based on World Bank figures on manufacturing added value as a percentage of GDP.

The auditor has made this warning, as it laid into the country's 'mediocre' schools and costly and bloated cultural sector.

In a series of unprecedented notes on the country's “structural failings, the state auditor also heaped criticism on its "declining" school system and an out-of-date culture ministry whose role as a “ticket office” to hand out mass subsidies verged on cronyism.

The timing of the diagnosis of France's ills risks comes just four months before the presidential elections in which the fate of French industry could loom large and affect current President Emmanuel Macron.

Among Mr Macron's rivals, hard-Right candidate Eric Zemmour, has repeatedly warned that France is in a near-terminal state of decline morally and economically.

One of the 13 notes handed to the Macron government, predicted that without tax cuts and massive investment in research and the green and digital economy, France, along with the European Union, faced “technological retreat” compared with other major world powers in America and Asia.

This news comes as France is planning to ask the EU to begin “litigation proceedings” if an ongoing row over post-Brexit fishing licences is not resolved.

The European Commission has said the dispute must be settled by December 10 – but Downing Street said on Thursday it did not recognise the deadline, threatening to further inflame tensions between the nations.

The row surrounds licences to fish in UK and Channel Islands waters under the terms of Britain’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU – the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA).

The main source of contention is the number of licences to fish in waters around the British coastline for smaller French vessels that can prove they operated there before Brexit.