Theresa May meets with centrist French Presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron – but he wants bankers and academics to move to France after Brexit

THERESA May has met with centrist French Presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron this afternoon - but he wants to drag our bankers and academics to to France after Brexit.

The Prime Minister met with the French candidate at No 10 today - as he visited London to try and woo some of the 300,000 expats in the UK.

But following the hour-long meeting, Mr Macron said he wanted to use Brexit to take away our talent to France.

He said when asked: "I want banks, talents, academics, researchers, and so on."

"It will be part of my programme to be attractive for these kinds of people,"; the former economy minister and ex-investment banker said.

But Downing Street hit back, saying that "London is the global financial centre and is going to remain so after Brexit". Officials refused to give any details of the conversation between Mr Macron and the PM.

And the centrist candidate - who created his own En Marche! (On the Move!) party - promised ex-pats that "France is changing".

Mr Macron added: "In the coming years, they'll have a lot of opportunities to come back to France and succeed in France."

The 39-year-old is standing to replace Francois Hollande later this year - who has said that Britain should be punished for leaving the EU.

Mr Macron recently said he would be "pretty tough" with the UK in Brexit talks.

However, he also said he would be ready to allow Britain to keep border controls - and unwanted migrants - on the French side of the border after Brexit, which will be a relief to ministers.

He had told reporters that he wanted to discuss relations between the two countries, Brexit, and other bilteral issues.

Mr Macron stressed that he wanted to secure "the need for our people to be allowed to stay here and work in good conditions" - Mrs May has said she cannot guarantee the rights of EU citizens here until she can guarantee those of Brits abroad.

The candidate was due to go on to meet the Chancellor Philip Hammond, and then to address around 3,000 French people living in the capital at the Methodist Central Hall in Central London.

Former PM Tony Blair previously met the Presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy at No 10 when he was running for office in 2007.

But Mrs May's spokesperson said this afternoon that she wouldn't agree to a similar meeting with right-winger Marine Le Pen.

"There's a long-standing policy that we don't engage with the Front National," he said, adding that as far as the British government was aware she had no plans to visit London.

"Monsieur Macron was in already in London, he asked for a meeting and we were able to accommodate," she told reporters.

Presidential candidate Ms Le Pen cancelled a meeting on Tuesday with Lebanon's grand mufti, its top cleric for Sunni Muslims, after refusing to wear a headscarf for the encounter.