The Eurozone debt crisis seemed to have taken its toll on the sales of PSA Peugeot-Citroen. The Group’s CEO, Philippe Varin, told the labour unions that the company's European sales plunged 15 percent in the first five months of the year versus a 7.3 percent industry-wide fall. As a result, the automaker would need to increase its 2012 savings target of €1 billion.

In order to achieve the target, the company might eliminate up to 10,000 jobs or about 10 percent of its total workforce in France to compensate for the falling sales. This is an increase from the original 6,000 positions announced under a previous austerity plan in November 2011. The job cuts would be carried out via a combination of reassignments, voluntary departures and forced redundancies.

Peugeot is expected to present the new cost-cutting measures at an extraordinary meeting with the unions on 12 July and another one scheduled for 25 July. There has been widespread speculation it may close its historic factory in the northern Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, which employs about 3,300 people. The speculation is viewed positively by investors and this sent Peugeot stock climbing.

I hope that PSA will manage to pull through this difficult period as they really have some nice looking models such as the funky Citroen DS Range and the handsome Peugeot 508.

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