The subsidies launched to encourage drivers to trade in old cars were highly successful but carmakers are now facing tough comparisons with the booming sales last year when schemes boosted sales.

Spain's car scrappage scheme ended at the start of July, coinciding with an increase in value-added tax. Spanish car sales fell 37.6 percent year-on-year in October following a 26.9 percent drop in September, industry association ANFAC said.

France still has a 500-euro ($697) scrapping bonus in place until the end of the year. Sales fell 18.7 percent in October to 171,449 units. Over the first 10 months passenger sales fell 1.4 percent in France.

In Germany, Europe's biggest car market, new car registrations continued to shrink in October, after falling almost 18 percent in September, a source familiar with the figures told Reuters.

Germany's scrappage scheme ended at the beginning of September last year.

European carmakers are increasingly relying on fast-growing emerging markets to boost their sales. On Monday South Korean and Indian carmakers posted strong October sales, but their Japanese counterparts saw double-digit declines in domestic sales.

In France, "(October) was bad, but we were expecting it because we are starting to enter the period in which 2009 saw its figures inflated by the scrapping incentive," said a spokesman for industry association CCFA.

"November and December sales figures will be even worse," he said. However, the French market should see sales of over 2 million units for the full year, the spokesman added.

In 2009 the French market saw sales increase by 10.7 percent to 2.3 million units, with customers flocking to showrooms towards the end of the year in particular, to take advantage of the full 1,000 euro scrapping scheme before it decreased at the start of 2010.

In October, Europe's second-biggest carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen saw a 17.3 percent fall in its group sales in France, while Renault group sales dropped 21.9 percent year-on-year last month.

Light commercial vehicle sales, which were not affected by the scrappage scheme, rose 15.7 percent in October and 12.7 percent in January to October in France.

Italian and Belgian car sales data for October is due out later on Tuesday, while the U.S. market figures are due to be released on Wednesday.