Feb. 16--PARIS -- 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 Echos financial newspaper reported.
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 Dassault Aviation.
Eurofighter -- a consortium of European aerospace and defence group EADS, Britain's BAE Systems and Italy's Alenia/Finmeccanica -- produces its chief rival, the Typhoon.
Dassault scored a key victory over Eurofighter in January, when India's government entered exclusive talks with Dassault on supplying 126 fighter jets.
The new aircraft planned by France and Britain would be built by Dassault and BAE Systems, according to Les Echos.
Friday's Franco-British summit between Sarkozy, Cameron and their defence 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.
Copyright 2012 - dpa, Berlin
