The evolution of confirmed cases in France should be taken with caution.
At the end of May, the method used to count them was changed, and the number of tests carried out each week rose from around 200,000 at the beginning of June, to more than a million at the beginning of September.
In addition, estimates point to more than 100,000 daily contaminations during the first wave, well above the published figures.
No doubt a consequence of the end-of-year gatherings, the number of new cases at the beginning of 2021 has started to rise sharply again with more than 20,000 new cases daily.
Data which has varied enormously since mid-December, ranging between some 3,000 and more than 25,000. But still far, on average, from the government objective of going down to 5,000 cases per day.