FRANCE could end up building part of the Royal Navy's two super-carriers, and ordering a third for itself, to allow the £3.6bn project to be completed within budget, according to senior Whitehall sources.
It would be the first such co-operative defence venture of its kind between the two countries.
The French government is considering ordering the British aircraft carrier in return for a share of the work on all three of the 60,000-tonne warships.
The move is also aimed at helping save thousands of shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde and at Rosyth, and at Southampton and Barrow-in-Furness in England. Industry and union officials fear workers could be laid off and expertise lost if construction were delayed by continued bickering between the Ministry of Defence and contractors over costs.
The two planned carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, were originally scheduled to enter service in 2012 and 2015 respectively.
That timetable has already slipped by at least a year, leading to the threat of lay-offs at UK yards while they wait for the construction phase, hailed two years ago as "a new golden age on the Clyde", to begin.
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