French consumer price inflation falls in July on decline in manufactured goods sales

Consumer price inflation in France fell during the month of July, following a decline in summer sales of manufactured goods that started early in the month, data released showed Thursday.

France's consumer price index fell 0.4 percent in July from June and was 0.2 percent higher than July 2015. The figures were in line with the expectations of market participants, data released by French statistics agency Insee showed Thursday.

Prices of manufactured goods fell 2.9 percent when compared with those of previous month while clothing and shoe prices fell 14 percent. Energy prices fell 1.3 percent

Inflation in the eurozone's second-largest economy has long been running below the European Central Bank's 2 percent target, despite the bank cutting interest rates to record lows and spending billions of euros on asset purchases.

However, core inflation eased to 0.5 percent from 0.7 percent a month ago. Meanwhile, month-on-month, HICP a harmonized measure of annual price changes used by the  European Central Bank rose 0.4 percent on the year after a 0.3 percent increase in June.