Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, who heads scientific council that advises the government on the epidemic, said the situation in about 20 large cities, including Marseille, Bordeaux and the Paris region, was being watched closely.
Jean Castex, who will still self-isolate ahead of a second test, came in contact with in contact with the boss of the Tour de France, who had tested positive for coronavirus.
French cartoonist Corinne Rey, known as Coco, had gone outside for a cigarette when the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi approached her and forced her to tap in the entry code for the magazine's office as they brandished a Kalashnikov.
A series of unexplained attacks on horses, ponies and donkeys around France since February, in which mutilated animals have been killed or severely wounded, continued this weekend in a latest incident in Burgundy, but police have so far failed to identify the attackers or their motives, which are speculated variously to be a gruesome online dare, dark Satanic rituals, or the work of a large criminal ring that sells horse's organs or blood.
An elderly man in the Dordogne region of south-west France escaped with slight burns after he blew up his kitchen and damaged the roof of his house when swatting an irritating fly with an electric racket that set off a blast from a gas leak, while the fate of the fly is unknown.
Two French soldiers died and a third was wounded after an explosive device was triggered beside their armoured vehicle in the north-east of Mali, bringing the total number of French military personnel killed since anti-terrorist operations in the country and Sahel region began seven years ago to 45.
