The airline, under pressure from France's new Socialist government, pledged to try to avoid forced layoffs by encouraging early retirement, voluntary departures, part-time working and work-sharing.

But the carrier warned forced redundancies would be "unavoidable" if unions refused to support management's plans.

"Assuming the new agreements are signed, procedures for dealing with overstaffing will exclude any recourse to forced departures," Air France said in a statement on Thursday following a meeting with the airline's works council.

Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) and Europe's other leading legacy carriers have been confronting losses in their short-haul operations, leading to a wave of painful contract negotiations and strikes.

The Franco-Dutch group unveiled a three-year plan in January, fleshed out last month, to reduce debt and operating costs by 2 billion euros ($2.54 billion) in an effort to return to break-even in 2014.

But the 15.9 percent state-owned airline had not yet detailed job cuts as it seeks 20 percent efficiency gains in the airline's network by 2014. Air France employs more than 70,000 of the 103,000 workers at Air France-KLM.

The staff cuts come as France's new President Francois Hollande has pledged to clamp down on layoffs with plans to ramp up the cost for companies of shedding staff. At 10 percent, the French jobless rate has hit the highest level this century.

(Reporting by James Regan; Editing by Lionel Laurent and Hans-Juergen Peters)

• A Permanent Economic Emergency