French Prime Minister Jean Castex has announced a new evening curfew will begin nationally across France starting at 18:00 (17:00 GMT) Saturday.
The move is a tightening of a curfew already in place since December, which restricts movement from 20:00-06:00.
Announcing the measure on Thursday, Mr Castex described the country’s situation as “worrying” with infections remaining at a “high plateau”.
He also announced new restrictions for people arriving into the country.
All those arriving from outside the EU will now have to test negative for the virus within 72 hours before their travel into France, and then isolate for seven days and test negative again, Mr Castex said.
The border controls are partly to limit the extent to which new mutant strains of the virus spreading abroad can become dominant in France. There is particular concern over the more transmissible variant first detected in the UK – which the French health minister says now accounts for about 1-1.5% of new cases nationally.
“We must do everything to prevent this variant from spreading in France,” Health Minister Olivier Veran told a Thursday news conference.
All shops and businesses will have to close at that time, except for emergency services.
The tighter evening restriction was already in place in some hard-hit eastern regions of the country before Thursday’s announcement and, according to the French Scientific Council, has led to infection rates slowing.
The prime minister said Thursday that the situation in France is “under control compared to neighbouring countries but still fragile” with pressure on hospitals remaining high.
The curfew is seen as a way to avoid a full national lockdown, but Mr Castex said further restrictions would be imposed “without delay” if the situation deteriorated further.
The country will aim to carry out at least one million Covid-19 tests per month in schools to help keep them open, but indoor sport activities have been banned again.
The government is also aiming to have more than one million people vaccinated against the virus by the end of January, amid criticism of a slow rollout by some.
“The sooner we can vaccinate the most vulnerable, the sooner our hospitals will be spared the risk of being overwhelmed,” Mr Castex said Thursday.
