France on Monday announced it had become the fourth country worldwide to register over 20,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus, after recording 547 new fatalities in the epidemic. "Tonight, our country has passed a barrier that is symbolic and particularly painful," top health official Jerome Salomon told reporters.
He announced that the country's total death toll was 20,265, while welcoming new falls in the numbers in hospital and intensive care.
Salomon noted that the coronavirus death toll was now was well above the 14,000 people who died in France's worst recent flu epidemic and even topped the 19,000 killed by the 2003 heatwave.