Paris, Nov 8 (IANS): Amid an ongoing second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, France's overall caseload stood at 1,748,705, while the total number fatalities topped the 40,000 mark, the Public Health Agency said.

On Saturday, there were 306 new fatalities, raising the death toll to 40,169, the agency added.

The total number of confirmed cases went up by a record 86,852 from the 1,661,853 registered on Friday.

But French health authorities did not specify whether the massive spike of cases was all confirmed in the past 24 hours.

"The entire flow of test results is re-established between the national SI-DEP collector (the country's digital tools for COVID-19 screening) and Public Health France.

The correction of the figures as well as the analysis of the weekly indicators are in progress and will be published on Monday," the national public health agency said on its website.

French media reported that data on infections have been incomplete for several days, due to a computer traffic jam that hampered the reporting of test results.

Coronavirus cases have surged sharply in France in recent months particularly among young people, prompting the government to introduce a new nationwide lockdown on October 30 until early December.