A FRENCH bid to build two Royal Navy aircraft carriers may be scuppered because the US government would rather share technology with a British company.

French defence group Thales is bidding against the UK's BAE Systems for a £2.9m contract for two 60,000 tonne ships.

Both companies are planning a modular design, and both would spread work around a number of British shipyards including in the North-East, before final assembly in Scotland.

Now, senior Pentagon sources have indicated they would be "more comfortable" sharing US technology on the vertical take-off stealth Joint Strike Fighter being flown from the carriers with a British company, than with a French one.

It is understood that officials from the US Navy have made their views known to senior Royal Navy officials in the Ministry of Defence.

A Pentagon source said: "On both a security and a commercial basis, we would be more comfortable sharing the technology with the British, rather than the French.

"However, there is some technology that is so sensitive that we are not very keen to share it with anyone."

A spokesman for Thales, which employs 12,000 people in the UK, said the company was a "trusted supplier" which already worked with the MoD in highly sensitive areas such as electronic warfare and data transfer.

The bid team includes the fighter's makers Lockheed Martin, the spokesman added.

The Mod said that adequate security measures were in place, whoever won the contract.