'No plan' for France, UK warship sharing

3 Sep 2010, 8:24 pm   -   Source: AAP
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France and Britain said on Friday they planned to work on joint defence projects but dismissed suggestions that they might share a fleet of aircraft carriers.

France and Britain said on Friday they planned to work on joint defence projects but dismissed suggestions that they might share a fleet of aircraft carriers.

"As to sharing aircraft carriers I would have thought that was utterly unrealistic," British defence minister Liam Fox Fox told reporters in Paris after meeting with his French counterpart Herve Morin.

Morin said "we are exploring things like the A400 (military transport plane), refuelling planes, possibly cooperation on naval capacity, but not on aircraft carriers."

Reports in the British press this week said that the Royal Navy and France's Marine Nationale might share carriers as part of cost-cutting measures.

France and Britain were hard hit by the international financial crisis and are struggling to fund their militaries -- the two most powerful in the European Union -- while both are stretched by war in Afghanistan.

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