Stellantis has joined Renault and Volkswagen with a summons to court in France to answer allegations of consumer fraud in connection with the sale of Euro 5 diesel vehicles.

The car manufacturing giant confirmed that it will have to pay bail of €10 (£8.6m) and a bank guarantee of €30m (£25.8m) after officially being placed under examination by the Judicial Court of Paris this week.

Peugeot is the initial target of the investigation – which relates to the sale of diesel vehicles in France between 2009 and 2015 – but Citroën and FCA have also been summoned to appear before the court, on June 10 and in July, respectively, as part of the same investigation.

A statement issued by Stellantis said that Peugeot was currently “in the process of assessing its defence options”.

It added: “This formal step in the judicial investigation will allow the investigated parties to have full access to the case file and give them the opportunity to defend against allegations that have not yet been evaluated in adversarial proceedings.