French President Emmanuel Macron, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, is in stable condition, and examinations have given reassuring results, a statement from his office said Saturday.
"The medical condition of the president is stable compared with Friday,” the Élysée Palace statement quoted Jean-Christophe Perrochon, the chief doctor of the presidency.
The statement said that Macron, who is working in self-isolation from an official residence outside Paris, "is still presenting the same symptoms of the Covid-19 illness (fatigue, coughing, stiffness)".
But they were not preventing him from carrying out his duties.
On Friday, Macron had promised to provide a daily update and, for the first time, posted on social media a short video message filmed on his own phone.
Speaking of the general situation in France, where the number of deaths passed 60,000 on Friday, he warned: "We have to be vigilant as the virus is gaining in strength again."
The French authorities are concerned that the holiday period could see a new spike in infections.
On Friday, a total 15,674 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours in France, down from 18,254 the previous day.
And the so-called positivity rate – which measures the number of confirmed contaminations as a proportion of the number of tests carried out – slipped slightly to 5.9 percent from 6.1 percent on Thursday.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
