France's government announced on Thursday it would delay unwinding some Covid-19 lockdown restrictions next week amid signs that the downward trend in new infections had flattened out.
Prime Minister Jean Castex said the government would lift a restriction on people's movement from December 15 but replace it with an 8pm curfew, including on New Year's Eve.
Castex said families would be allowed to travel to celebrate Christmas together but said that museums, theatres and cinemas would remain closed for an extra three weeks as the number of new Covid-19 infections begins to slowly rise again.
An exception to the nighttime curfew will be made for Christmas Eve, he added.
The situation has "considerably improved" since the country entered a second lockdown on October 30, the prime minister said, noting that the number of new infections had fallen from nearly 50,000 a day in late October to around 10,000.
But the decline "has slowed over the past several days," Castex added. "We're on a sort of plateau ... We cannot let our guard down."
'We have not exited the second wave'
Health Minister Olivier Véran admitted that France would fall far short of its goal of a maximum 5,000 new cases per day by Tuesday, when the lockdown was scheduled to end.
On Thursday, the country recorded nearly 14,000 infections over the previous 24 hours, compared with 12,000 a week earlier, he said.
"We have still not exited the second wave" of the epidemic, he said, adding that it was necessary to prevent large gatherings on New Year's Eve to prevent a rebound and a possible third lockdown in 2021,
The total death toll in France since the beginning of the pandemic stands at over 55,000.
The decision to postpone the reopening of cultural venues until January drew angry reactions.
"We are tired of not being given more consideration. Once more culture is being left on the side of the road," Philippe Lellouche, a French actor and director, told BFM TV
Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot did not even attend the news conference, he noted.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
