France is at the beginning of a fifth wave of the coronavirus pandemic, its Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
"Several neighboring countries are already in a fifth wave of the COVID epidemic, what we are experiencing in France clearly looks like the beginning of a fifth wave," Veran was quoted as having said on TF1 television.
The Health Ministry in France registered 11,883 new cases on Wednesday, the second day in a row with a new case tally over 10,000.
New cases in France have seen double-digit percentage increases since around mid-October, according to Reuters.
Since the start of the pandemic, France has gone into several lockdowns in an attempt to curb spread of COVID-19.
The first lockdown was effective at containing the epidemic, but the virus started spreading again after rules were relaxed.