French President Nicolas Sarkozy is planning to tell U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown that France will send an additional 1,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, The Times newspaper is reporting.
Senior ministers told The Times that the deployment would be to the eastern region of Afghanistan.
Canada recently pledged to extend its mission in the dangerous southern region of Kandahar in Afghanistan to 2011, provided its NATO allies provided an additional 1,000 troops.
But French diplomats are insisting that no decision has been made as to where the new troops are to be deployed.
France currently has a little over 1,500 soldiers in Afghanistan. Most of its troops are in the relatively secure capital of Kabul, in eastern Afghanistan.
But if the French troops do go to the east, it has been suggested that the move would allow more American soldiers to be deployed to assist the Canadian regiment.
U.S. President George W. Bush has been bullish on his European NATO allies to step up and provide more soldiers for Afghanistan. The United States will be adding about 3,000 more soldiers in 2008.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay has said that Canada expected an announcement from NATO on the additional troops at a summit meeting in early April in Bucharest, Romania.
The Times report said that France was not going to make a formal announcement until that meeting.
Sarkozy is to be in London on Wednesday for a two-day state visit.
Canada currently has 2,500 soldiers in Kandahar. Canada has lost 81 soldiers and a diplomat since the mission began in 2002.
Twelve French soldiers have died in Afghanistan.
