Christine Lagarde has warned of a “worrying” risk of a French government collapse amid growing concerns over the country’s debt pressures.

The president of the European Central Bank (ECB) said she was looking “very carefully” at French borrowing costs, which recently hit a 14-year high ahead of a confidence vote that could topple the prime minister.

François Bayrou is expected to lose the vote on Sept 8 in what would be the second government collapse in less than a year.

The threat of the government’s implosion comes amid an ongoing budget stand-off, as the French parliament has yet to agree on how to tackle its surging debt pile.

“All risks of government collapse in any eurozone country are worrying,” Ms Lagarde told Radio Classique.

“Political developments and the emergence of political risks have an obvious impact on the economy, on how financial markets assess country risk, and are therefore a concern for us.”

Ms Lagarde said she was carefully monitoring France’s borrowing costs: “The additional cost for French debt has increased and is just below Italy, which wasn’t the case a few quarters ago.”

The return demanded by investors on long-term French debt recently climbed to its highest level since 2011, fuelled by concerns that the government cannot keep its public finances under control.

At the end of last year, France’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 113pc, compared with 100pc in Britain.

However, Ms Lagarde also insisted France did not yet need a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), just days after the country’s finance minister raised it as a possibility.

Ms Lagarde said: “I believe that the French banking system is well capitalised, that it is in better shape than it was during the last major financial crisis, that it is well structured, well supervised and has responsible players.

“I do not believe that the banking system itself is in any way the source of the current risk – but markets, in all circumstances of this nature, assess the risk.”

Mr Bayrou, 74, is expected to lose a confidence vote over his plans to save €44bn (£38bn) with measures that include reducing the number of public holidays and placing a freeze on spending increases.

France’s ongoing failure to pass deep budget cuts through parliament has pushed up borrowing costs across European debt markets.

US borrowing costs, which influence global bond markets, have also remained high since Congress passed Donald Trump’s $4.5 trillion (£3.3 trillion) tax-cutting bill, which is expected to push America’s deficit.

US Treasury bonds have also come under pressure since the president tried to sack one of the governors of the Federal Reserve, raising concerns about the central bank’s independence.

The turmoil around Lisa Cook’s position follows a series of attacks on chairman Jerome Powell, who Mr Trump has branded a “numbskull” for failing to cut interest rates this year.

Ms Lagarde said any efforts to remove Ms Cook or Mr Powell would represent a “very serious danger for the US economy and the world economy”.

She said: “If US monetary policy were no longer independent and instead dependent on the dictates of this or that person, then I believe that the effect on the balance of the American economy could, as a result of the effects this would have around the world, be very worrying, because it is the largest economy in the world.”

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