French auto giant PSA Peugeot Citroën will cut at least 4,000 jobs in France next year as part of a wide-ranging cost-cutting plan, local press yesterday.

The new cuts, mostly in France, will see 1,000 jobs being cut in production, 500 in research and development, 400 in other departments and between 2,200 and 2,500 with external partners, major labor unions CGT and CFDT said.

The announcement of the latest round of job cuts sparked an impromptu strike outside the company's headquarters. Peugeot Citroën employs 80,000 staff in car production and another 18,000 in associated companies in the country.

The latest cuts come after the Paris-based carmaker announced last month that it planned to axe 6,000 non-production posts across Europe as part of an €800 million ($1.08 billion) cost-cutting plan, amid falling demand in southern Europe.

The plan affects over 10 per cent of the non-production workforce in company, out of its 50,000 employees in Europe.

Peugeot Citroën CEO Philippe Varin had said that the cuts were needed as "2011 was difficult for the group and significantly harder than what we expected."

Sales from its automotive division fell 1.6 per cent to €9.3 billion ($12.59 billion) in September due to price competition and loss in production volume. However, in the third quarter this year, the carmaker reported a 3.5 per cent increase in revenue to €13.45 billion ($18.22 billion).

Earlier this year, Peugeot Citroën said it expected sales in the European car market to stablise, along with a 7-per cent growth in China, and 6 per cent and 30 per cent growth in Latin America and Russia respectively.

Peugeot Citroën is planning to expand in emerging markets to capture growth and reduce its dependence on Europe as sales outside Europe have risen to 41 per cent of the total.