Slump in August car sales in France
French car sales fell by 11.4 per cent in August, following a drop of seven per cent the previous month.
Issued on: Modified:
The manufacturers’ organisation said the number of sales of new cars in France slipped to 96,115.
Over the first eight months of this year, the fall was 13.4 percent, it said, noting that the French carmakers PSA Peugeot Citroen and Renault suffered more last month than their foreign competitors.
The sector has been weak for several months owing to the end of a cash-for-bangers government bonus to support car sales at the height of the financial crisis.
The poor car sales came a day after French Labour Minister Michel Sapin said that the country's unemployment had passed the symbolic number of three million registered jobseekers and would keep rising.
President Francois Hollande's Socialist government is struggling to tackle rising unemployment after he took office in May amid the debt crisis that is dragging down European economies.
The government last month announced that it will boost support for environmentally- friendly cars as part of a rescue plan unveiled amid growing concern for top carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen.
PSA Peugeot Citroen posted a net loss of 819 million euros for the first half of this year, more than reversing net profit a year earlier of 806 million euros.
The company, had already announced 8,000 job losses in France, where it employs 100,000 people, said it will implement a 1.5-billion-euro cost reduction plan up until 2015.
Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning
Subscribe