The use of hospital beds by Covid-19 patients in the French city of Marseille is "close to saturation" amid a sharp spike in infections, reports the BBC.
Surgeries are being reduced to cope with an incidence rate that has risen to 312 per 100,000 since September.
New limits on gatherings are being introduced around Marseille and in the south-western city of Bordeaux.
The two cities are the main new hotspots in a country that on Saturday recorded a big surge in cases.
The 10,561 new infections over 24 hours represented the biggest rise since large-scale testing began.
The figures for Sunday and Monday were lower - as tends to be the case for weekend reporting - but the seven-day rolling average, which smoothes out these irregularities, recorded an increase in infections for the 28th day in a row.
France has recorded more than 425,000 infections, and almost 31,000 deaths, in the coronavirus epidemic, Johns Hopkins University research shows.