France has officially registered more than 10,000 deaths from coronavirus infections, making it the fourth country to cross that threshold after Italy, Spain and the United States.
The rate of increase in the number of fatalities also rose on Tuesday for the second consecutive day, official figures showed.
Jerome Salomon, head of the public health authority, told a news conference the pandemic was still expanding in France, which is now in the fourth week of a national lockdown to try to curb its spread, but he said the number of serious coronavirus cases being treated in intensive care units had risen by only 0.8% in the previous 24 hours - the eighth consecutive day that this rate has decelerated.