French president to talk tankers with Obama

Published 7:51 am Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Boeing Co. tankers will be among the topics that French President Nicolas Sarkozy will discuss with President Barack Obama later this month.

Earlier this week, Boeing’s rival for a $35 billion U.S. Air Force tanker contract, duo Northrop Grumman and EADS, dropped out of the contest. Northrop and EADS, the parent company of Airbus, decided their tanker, based on an Airbus A330, wouldn’t win the contest. The duo felt the Air Force had skewed the competition to favor Boeing.

Sarkozy’s spokesman told the AP that the president has concerns whether the competition was run fairly.