France should consider closing its borders with Britain and other countries which have a strong presence of the UK variant of the coronavirus, a French epidemiologist and government adviser has said.

Arnaud Fontanet, a member of the scientific council that advises the government on Covid-19 policy, also said on BFM television that to get the epidemic under control, France needs to vaccinate 10 to 15 million people by the end of March and 25 to 30m people by the end of June.