Chris Bryant, who served as minister for Europe under Gordon Brown, used a speech in the Commons to highlight the waning value of the French tongue, which has traditionally been the first foreign language taught to British schoolchildren.

Mr Bryant, now a shadow Foreign Office minister, said that young people should be pointed towards languages that were more useful for business.

He told MPs: “Unless we have sufficient numbers of people who speak modern foreign languages – and not just the useless modern foreign languages like French …”

Amid Tory protests that this was “insulting” to our near neighbours, Mr Bryant said: “I’ve said this to the French. I think they realise there are problems.”