Macron invites May to his holiday retreat in the south of France for talks in a fresh bid to end the Brexit deadlock.

Emmanuel Macron today invited Theresa May to his holiday home in the south of France in a fresh attempt to end the Brexit deadlock.  The French President's surprise invitation emerged just hours after Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt held talks on Brexit in Paris.

An Elysee Palace source said Mr Macron and Mrs May would meet at Fort Bregancon near Toulon on Friday evening. The meeting will be followed by a private dinner between Macron and his wife Brigitte and May and her husband Philip.

Downing Street sources told MailOnline the meeting followed similar talks with other EU leaders in recent weeks, including with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The leaders will focus on Mrs May's Brexit blueprint agreed by the Cabinet at Chequers earlier this month. The controversial plan almost brought down her Government as Boris Johnson and David Davis both resigned in protest.

Mrs May make the stop in France on her way home from her holiday in Italy.

She was due back in Britain to resume work in her constituency and Downing Street before a second break in Switzerland after World War 1 commemorations in Amiens in August.

Speaking in Paris this morning before he held crunch talks to try and save the Prime Minister's Chequers blueprint for Brexit, Mr Hunt pleaded with the French people not 'to confuse Brexit with right-wing populism'.

Instead he insisted that a deal was just as important to the UK's European allies as it was to the UK - but warned no deal could happen by accident if the EU thought it could wait for Britain to back down.

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