France will ban non-essential travel to and from Britain from the weekend to slow the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant that is causing record numbers of cases on the other side of the Channel, the government has said.
From midnight Saturday there will be a "requirement to have an essential reason to travel to, or come from, the UK, both for the unvaccinated and vaccinated ...
People cannot travel for touristic or professional reasons," the government said in a statement, adding that French citizens and EU nationals could still return to France from the UK.
Earlier, government spokesman Gabriel Attal told BFM television "We will put in place a system of controls drastically tighter than the one we have already," adding that the office