France recorded a record number of around 335,000 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, Health Minister Olivier Veran said, while the number of deaths also rose as the country battles a fifth wave of the virus.

Veran reported the figure during a session with the French parliament.

The number of Covid-19 deaths in hospitals increased by 246 to 97,670 in the last 24 hours.

The total number of Covid-19 patients in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) stood at 3,695, while there were more than 20,000 Covid-19 patients in the hospital in total, the highest number since the end of May.

France supports intensifying its Covid-19 vaccination program to avoid having to adopt drastic new restrictions to curb the spread of the virus.