French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron are to unveil plans to develop an unmanned European fighter jet at a summit in Paris on Friday, Les Echo financial newspaper was quoted by dpa as reporting. The paper on Thursday quoted unnamed sources as saying the two governments aimed to build a "prototype of an unmanned stealth aircraft by 2020. " "This is clearly bilateral cooperation for the post-Rafale and post-Eurofighter (era)," the paper quoted a source as saying. The Rafale fighter jet is produced by France's Assault Aviation. Euro fighter - a consortium of European aerospace and defence grouped, Britain's BAE Systems and Italy's Alexia/Finmeccanica -produces its chief rival, the Typhoon. Assault scored a key victory over Euro fighter in January, when India's government entered exclusive talks with Assault on supplying 126 fighter jets. The new aircraft planned by France and Britain would be built by Assault and BAE Systems, according to Les Echoes. Friday's Franco-British summit between Sarkozy, Cameron and theirdefence and foreign ministers will deal mainly with defence issues. In November 2010 Sarkozy and Cameron signed an agreement on far-reaching military and nuclear cooperation, aimed at cutting costs while enhancing both countries' individual and joint capabilities.
