The new daily tally is up from 18,129 new cases reported on Thursday, and higher than the previous high of 18,746 registered two days ago.

An accumulative total of 691,977 cases has been registered and the total deaths since February reached 32,593 after a single day increase of 62.

Currently 7,864 people are hospitalized with coronavirus infection, including 1,448 in intensive care, up by 240 and 21 respectively in one day.

With hospitals overwhelmed by the influx of COVID-19 patients in March, the French government had been forced to put population under strict lockdown to contain the virus spread.

Daily infections remained above 4,500 in the first half of April. Since May the tally was pushed down to below 1,000 before starting to rebound during summer holidays.

Health Minister Olivier Veran on Thursday reiterated that the French people must learn to live with the virus by strictly respecting social distancing rules. Another hope to bring an end to the epidemic lies in the development of vaccine, he added.

Countries across the globe -- including France, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- are racing to find a vaccine. As of Oct. 2, 193 COVID-19 candidate vaccines were being developed worldwide, 42 of them in clinical trials already, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).