Elsewhere in Europe, Spain and Italy remained tough spots amid competitive pressures and challenging economic conditions but Brazil continued to improve.

Fourth-quarter sales came to 22.6 billion euros (25.7 billion), broadly in line with expectations.

Growth reached 1.9 percent on a like-for-like basis excluding fuel and calendar effects, against 2.1 percent in the previous quarter. In France alone, hypermarket sales were down 2.2 percent.

Carrefour is in the midst of a five-year plan it launched a year ago to cut costs and jobs, boost E-commerce investment and seek a partnership in China with Tencent in a bid to boost profits and revenues and help it tackle competition from Amazon. It kept all its targets under the plan.

($1 = 0.8804 euros)

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Mathieu Rosemain)