France's COVID-19 death toll tops 65,000

PARIS, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- France has registered 12,489 coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 2,665,728, while the death toll went up by 116 to 65,037, according to data released on Sunday by the Health Ministry.

Cold weather, effects of gatherings during year-end holidays, return to school scheduled for Monday and emergence of virus variants are the main worrying factors, said Director General of Health Jerome Salomon in an interview with weekly newspaper Journal du Dimanche.