Carnival merrymakers in the German city of Mainz chose the woes of airplane manufacturer Airbus as the motif for one float this year -- the satirical equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, some might say. The float in the Rose Monday parade showed an Airbus A380 airplane split into three sections and with wings missing -- but still bearing a sign promising it would "take off on time."

However it seems like nothing happens on time at Airbus. Now the announcement of much-anticipated restructuring plans has been delayed after the latest round of squabbling  among shareholders.

Meanwhile the French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin confirmed Tuesday in remarks to the German radio station RTL that Airbus plans to cut 10,000 jobs.

Villepin was asked to confirm media reports that 10,000 jobs would be cut. "That is what is envisioned in the plan," he said. "But we say: no layoffs. An answer must be found for each person."

French President Jacques Chirac and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel are to discuss the Airbus crisis at a summit meeting Friday near Berlin, Villepin confirmed. "It's a question we want to address at the highest level," he said.

Villepin said he had phoned Merkel and informed her of French efforts to reach an agreement. "We need to find a solution that can be acceptable for the one and the other," he said.

The restructuring plan, known as "Power8," was to be unveiled at a news conference in Toulouse on Tuesday but a delay was announced on Monday. Airbus said that French and German shareholders of Airbus' parent company, EADS, had failed to reach agreement on where the company's new aircraft, the A350 XWB, should be built.

The delay followed a heated board meeting at EADS on Sunday at which the group failed to sign off on management's Power8 restructuring plans, a source close to the matter told the news agency Reuters. No new date has been set for the announcement, and Airbus and EADS have both declined to comment on the restructuring plans.

Although the plans are still supposedly under wraps, there has been no shortage of reports in the French and German media as to what is going on. On Monday there were reports that Airbus is planning to sell off  at least one production site to a third party, with French daily Le Figaro speculating that the plant in Saint-Nazaire could be sold to a subcontractor, and French business daily Les Echos reporting plans to sell the plant in Méaulte. Meanwhile German daily Bild reported that the purchase of the Airbus plant in Varel by the German-Swiss Liebherr group had already been decided.

Bild also reported Tuesday the relatively good news that fewer than 1,000 jobs would be cut at the Hamburg plant. The works councils had feared significantly greater job cuts at the factory, which is the biggest Airbus plant in Germany and has around 12,000 employees. Airbus has a total staff of 50,000 and 23,000 of these employees are in Germany.

Patriotism, predictably, was evident in the post-delay mudslinging. French newspapers blamed Germany for the stalemate, with Le Figaro talking about a Franco-German "divorce" while Les Echos announced on its front page: "The restructuring of Airbus blocked by a German veto."

The German daily Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung, on the other hand, sought to rise above such pettiness. It called the delay in announcing the plans a "disgrace," and added that, "It shows once again how great the danger is that Airbus will be crushed between the millstones of national interests."

The paper advised politicians from the two countries to put aside national interests and give up quarrels over where plants should be located, which are "irrelevant" in business terms, and focus instead on competing with arch-rival Boeing.