English Translation
His uncle owns no fewer than ten houses.
I’m confused about whether “ne“ is needed in this sentence or not. Pas de moins means “no less than“ without the ne, right? (Posséder doesn’t use ne expletive, from what I can figure out.)
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When I first read this sentence, I thought nothing of it. Sounded perfectly fine/natural to me (still does).
Then, I saw your comment.
After carefully analyzing this sentence and thinking about it logically, I can now say with some certainty that
Click to show
You are not alone! :)
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Sorry, I finally found the answer in the Larousse French dictionary (French only, not French-English):
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Ne… pas moins (de)****, insiste sur l’importance, la quantité : Il ne me faudra pas moins de dix jours pour finir.
© Larousse 2014
All the sentences that I saw without the “ne“ must be just a dropped word. So your sense that it is ok is correct. (Reminds me of the old joke: “I was wrong once. I thought I was wrong but I was right.“)
The click to show was great!
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Nice, you found what I was (desperately) looking for!
That’s the thing… Google showed me quite a few of these as well.
Anyway, I’m happy enough with their explanation, now I can sleep peacefully again.
Thanks!
I am writing this one down 
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