The Covid-19 situation in France is worrying, the head of the country's Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS) health regulator told France Inter radio, as President Emmanuel Macron's government considers a new lockdown.

France has the world's seventh highest Covid-19 death toll, with more than 73,000 deaths.

“It is a worrying moment. We are looking at the figures, day by day. We need to take measures pretty quickly....but at the same time, not too hastily,” said HAS head Dominique Le Guludec.

Jean-Franois Delfraissy, head of the scientific council that advises the government on Covid-19, had said on Sunday that France probably needed a third national lockdown, perhaps as early as the February school holidays, because of the circulation of new variants of the virus.