By Cyril Altmeyer
PARIS (Reuters) - French defence electronics maker Thales (PA:TCFP) is set to name former EDF (PA:EDF) boss Henri Proglio as non-executive chairman and its own second-in-command Patrice Caine as chief executive, two sources close to the matter told Reuters on Sunday.
The appointments should be made public on Monday following a board meeting scheduled for 1700 GMT, the sources said, adding however that talks between shareholders over the change of governance to a dual leadership might delay the meeting.
Thales and the French government - its top shareholder with 26 percent - declined to comment on the appointments, first reported by French newswire service AFP.
Dassault Aviation (PA:AVMD), which holds 25 percent of Thales, could not be reached for immediate comment.
The government and Dassault have been in talks for several weeks over the succession of Jean-Bernard Levy, who has resigned from Thales to run EDF, France's top power firm.
Thales named group secretary Philippe Logak as interim chairman and chief executive in November.
According to sources close to the matter, shareholders were split over whether to give the job of running Europe's largest defence electronics firm to an internal candidate, with Dassault preferring an external candidate.
Reuters reported in November that Levy would be replaced by a non-executive chairman from outside the company and a CEO chosen from within.
Negotiations appeared to have been complicated by Dassault's anger at not being informed in advance of the government's unexpected decision to transfer Levy to EDF after two years at Thales, which had stabilised under his charge.
It is not the first time the French government and Dassault have quarrelled over who should run Thales, which makes military and civil radar and owns a stake in France's naval shipyard. Levy's predecessor Luc Vigneron was a compromise candidate after a similar shareholder split.
This month Safran (PA:SAF), another partially privatised French aerospace and defence group, chose a dual leadership structure to succeed chairman and CEO Jean-Paul Herteman when he retires next year, naming Philippe Petitcolin as its next chief executive and Ross McInnes as chairman.
(writing by Natalie Huet; editing by Jason Neely)