Paris, Jan 10 (IANS): France has reported 20,177 new Covid-19 cases in te past 24 hours, bringing its accumulative tally to 2,824,920, according to the country's health authorities.

The Covid-19 death toll in the country rose by 168 in the past day to 67,734, the third highest in Europe after the UK and Italy, and the seventh in the world, Xinhua news agency reported.

As of Saturday, a total of 24,273 Covid-19 patients remain hospitalised, down by 137 from the previous day, while 2,609 patients are in intensive care, six fewer than Friday's figure.

Meanwhile, 21 cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in Britain were identified in a family cluster in the southern department of Bouches-du-Rhone, the region's prefecture announced earlier in the day.

In a bid to contain the virus resurgence, local authorities have imposed a curfew at 6 p.m., two hours earlier than a night-time ban already in force across French cities since December 2020.

France has so far reported 40 cases of the highly contagious British coronavirus variant and three cases of the variant found in South Africa.

Last week, Health Minister Olivier Veran said he was taking the threat of these two variants "very seriously", pledging to take all necessary measures "to avoid at all cost the spread of these variants in France".