French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday that because of the rapid spread of the coronavirus, the government will extend the 9pm to 6am curfew to 38 more departments, starting from Friday at midnight, Reuters reports.

He said the curfew would now impact a total of 46 million people and would include some overseas French territories. France has a population of about 67 million people.

Last week France already imposed a curfew in Paris and eight other big cities.

“A second wave of the coronavirus epidemic is now under way in France and Europe. The situation is very serious,” Castex said at a news conference, adding that the month of November would be very tough.

“The coming weeks will be hard and the number of deaths will continue to rise,” he said.