Car manufacturers sold 164,774 new vehicles at the end of September, up from 151,089 vehicles sold a month earlier, due to growing sales of foreign brands despite Germany's Volkswagen emissions scandal, official data showed on Thursday.
Last month, new car sales rose by 9.1 percent thanks to a 15.2- percent increase in those of foreign car makers, the French car sales federation CCFA said in its monthly report.
Despite the scandal of emissions-cheating software, Volkswagen group sold 12.6 percent more units over the period.
However, September sales were ordered before the VW scandal had sparked, according to Francois Roudier, CCFA's spokesperson.
"We estimate the auto market will grow by up to 5.0 percent for the whole year of 2015 from a previous estimate of 2 percent, because of a recovery trend observed in enterprises and people," Roudier was quoted as saying by local media.
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