France on Thursday, September 10 registered a record of almost 10,000 new Covid-19 cases over the last 24 hours ahead of a key meeting to decide whether to toughen the country's coronavirus measures, France 24 says.

The health ministry said 9,843 new coronavirus infections had been recorded, the highest number since large scale testing began with 71 new clusters confirmed.

Officials are increasingly concerned about the rising number of infections in France, although the death toll and admissions into intensive care units remain far below the heights recorded during France's lockdown in March and April.

Over the last week, 48,542 new cases have been counted, out of over 1 million tests carried out, with the proportion of tests coming back positive rising to 5.4 percent.

Nineteen people died of Covid-19 infection, the ministry added, bringing France's toll from the pandemic to 30,813.