George Osborne’s sale of Britain’s stake in Eurostar is a “betrayal of the British people,” rail campaigners said yesterday.

The Tory Chancellor hailed the £757 million sale as a “fantastic deal for UK taxpayers” — but unions said he was selling it off on the cheap.

The consortium buying the stake is led by Canadian pension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPG).

CDPG senior vice-president Macky Tall described Eurostar as a “highly strategic asset that will generate stable and predictable returns for our clients.”

Lib Dem Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander crowed: “There’s no virtue in the government owning assets it does not need to.”

But general secretary Mick Whelan of train drivers’ union Aslef was less sanguine.

“The coalition sold this country short on the Royal Mail and it’s sold this country

short on Eurostar,” he blasted.

“I don’t believe in privatisation, because it doesn’t work, but if you’re going to do it, then you would think they would try and get the proper value, wouldn’t you?”

The Eurostar deal will be finalised in the next few months unless the state-owned French and Belgian rail operators are willing to stump up 15 per cent more than the offered sum.

“The trouble is that David ‘Del Boy’ Cameron seems to think he’s the proprietor of Great Britain plc, and the country is a sort of Trotter Trading, where everything has to be sold off at bargain basement prices.

“That means the taxpayer loses out and his hedge fund mates in the City make a private profit at public expense.”

Fellow rail union RMT leader Mick Cash added: “The Eurostar sell-off is a gross act of betrayal of the British people by a right-wing government hell-bent on selling off the family silver regardless of the real cost.

“The French and Belgians think we are insane knocking off such a valuable and strategic infrastructure asset.”

The largest shareholder in Eurostar is French state rail operator SNCF, which maintains a 55 per cent stake.

Three quarters of Britain’s private rail companies are now owned by foreign governments.