VW gains more ground from Peugeot as French car sales decline

PARIS (Reuters) - French light vehicle sales edged lower in June, with PSA Peugeot Citroen (PEUP.PA) losing more ground to Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) even as the market decline appeared to slow.

Deliveries of cars and light commercial vehicles both posted a 0.9 percent drop last month, after a 17 percent plunge in May, for a total of 248,697 registrations, the country's CCFA auto manufacturing association said in a statement on Monday.

The Peugeot and Citroen brands' combined car sales fell 9.5 percent to 63,551, while domestic rival Renault (RENA.PA) recorded a 9.5 percent gain to 50,018 cars, thanks to a surge of business for its no-frills Dacia brand.

Volkswagen, Europe's biggest automaker, continued to increase market share with a 3.8 percent car sales gain for the month. The namesake VW brand surged 11 percent.

Overall French registrations were also lifted by an additional day of sales compared with June 2011. Excluding that extra day, light vehicle sales fell 5.6 percent, the CCFA said.

(Reporting by Laurence Frost and Gilles Guillaume)