France will need new COVID lockdown if it can't master variant -epidemiologist

France will have to resort to a strict lockdown like those in Ireland and Britain if it fails to rein in the more contagious variants of the coronavirus, a French epidemiologist and government adviser said on Friday.

Arnaud Fontanet, a member of the scientific council that advises the government on COVID-19 policy, also said on France Inter radio the country is in a "very tense situation with exhausted hospital staff".