France to cut 24,000 defence posts by 2019 Under the long-term strategic plan, France's overall expeditionary force will be slashed from 30,000 men to between 15-20,000, but one defence official told Le Monde this would be enough to "repeat Mali, Libya or the Persian Gulf." Franco-British projects to develop a helicopter-launched anti-ship missile and to renovate the Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile appear no longer under threat. The future of France's only aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, is also secure meaning joint sea operations in which British aircraft would use France's carrier remain a possibility. Under the paper, France will place more emphasis on fighting cyber warfare and will boost purchases of drones, which it lacked in Mali. Last month, senior French defence officials warned mooted cuts of 30 billion euros by 2020 could jeopardise France's military "Entente Cordiale" with Britain, "kill" its conventional army and render Mali-type intervention impossible. That worst-case scenario has been avoided after Mr Hollande stepped in to pledge: "We will spend in 2014 exactly the same amount as in 2013." On Monday, the president insisted future defence spending will "ensure the best training, the best equipment and the best intelligence possible for our armies." The white paper's priorities were "protection, dissuasion and intervention," he said. But General Vincent Desportes, former head of France's School of War, warned that France's decision to "sanctify" its nuclear deterrent to the detriment of conventional forces meant "we will end up with a model that doesn't work, namely the nuclear bomb plus gendarmes." Hervé Morin, Mr Sarkozy's former defence minister, said the white paper was "calamitous" as it "leaves to (Mr Hollande's) successor the task of adapting our defence apparatus to budgetary constraints and France's debt."