Five out of the carmaker's six unions approved the job cuts, which are balanced by an identical number of new permanent hires, PSA said in a statement.

PSA, which has been trimming its French workforce under Chief Executive Carlos Tavares, is among a first handful of companies to use the new flexible labour measures introduced within months of Macron's election last May.

The planned cuts were approved by the CFDT, CFE/CGC, CFTC, FO and GSEA unions. The leftwing CGT refused to lend its support for what it described as "this latest redundancy plan".

(Reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)