Maurice Taylor, chief executive of US-based tyre manufacturer Titan International, has announced that his company is no longer interested in taking over a plant in France because of the country’s labour laws.

Speaking on the radio station French Info, Mr Taylor said that he had “initially” expressed interest in taking over the loss-making Goodyear tyre plant in Amiens, but had thought better of it. Goodyear announced in January 2013 that it was closing the factory, which employs 1,173 people, after years of negotiations with unions failed to reach a solution to save jobs.

He said: “You can’t buy Goodyear. Under your law, we have to take a minimum of 662 or 672 employees; you can’t do that. The most you could take is 333 . . . there is no business for that plant now.”

Mr Taylor came in for a great deal of criticism from much of the French media for his comments — and not for the first time.

In 2013, he wrote a letter to the French Industrial Renewal Minister, saying that French workers were lazy and overpaid: “They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three hours and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me: ‘That’s the French way’.”