GE hopes CFM venture will boost its bid for Alstom

[VILLAROCHE, France] In a cavernous factory planted in farmland here south of Paris, workers assemble the best-selling aircraft engine in history, in a feat of trans-Atlantic industrial cooperation that has few parallels.

Engineers and technicians in blue overalls carefully marry US-made engine cores - each containing a combustion chamber and related elements - to French-made turbofans, turbines and compressors. Combined, they form jet engines weighing 2½ tonnes each.

Every month, up to 65 of these powerful machines are borne by a series of yellow cranes through assembly and testing stations before being shipped out for mounting on the wings of the world's most popular passenger jets.