Hospital admissions for Covid-19 went up by 157 to reach 28,886. A total of 5,273 people with Covid-19 were in intensive care units (ICU), 19 more than the Friday figure, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The number of new infections is still under calculation, the ministry noted. France reported on Friday 46,677 new cases, after registering 50,659 on Thursday and 59,038 -- the highest daily figure since November 6 -- on Wednesday.

France entered its third national lockdown on Saturday as shops deemed non-essential have to close, people's movement is limited to a radius of 10 kilometers from home while nurseries and schools will be closed for three to four weeks.

As of Saturday, 9.24 million people in France, or 17.6 per cent of the adult population, have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 3.11 million have received two injections, according to the health ministry.

France has approved the use of vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.

Meanwhile, 269 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 85 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on April 2.