In France, between 600,000 and 650,000 ducks, chickens and other animals were culled for avian flu in one month.
The farms in the south-west of the country are the most affected, the Ministry of Agriculture said to AFP on Friday.
This region is home to the profitable foie gras industry (French for “fat liver”, meaning here: duck and foie gras).
In a preliminary survey, the ministry listed 26 farms affected, 15 cases in the wild and three cases on chicken farms.
Like many other European countries, France is affected by the highly contagious avian flu that is spread by migratory birds.
In the past year, avian flu spread to 500 farms.
At that time around 3.5 million animals were culled, mainly ducks.
That year, the virus was first detected on November 26th in the Warhem commune in northern France, where 160,000 laying hens were kept.
The Ministry of Agriculture announced further regulations to combat bird flu.
Accordingly, farms in certain regions are not allowed to accept any new chicks or ducklings until January 7th.
Poultry farmers in North Frisia should keep animals in stables
Bird flu outbreaks were also recently reported in Belgium and Great Britain.
Czech veterinarians also announced on Wednesday that 80,000 animals would be culled after 100,000 animals had died of avian flu in one farm within a short period of time.
Israel's Environment Minister Tamar Zandberg even spoke of the "worst blow to the animal world in the history of the country".
Israel is threatened with a shortage of eggs because more than 500,000 chickens have already had to be culled.
As early as the end of November, the poultry farmers in North Friesland were instructed to keep their animals in stalls or to protect them in some other way.
Avian influenza had been rampant in Schleswig-Holstein for around a month at this time and had been detected in seven districts.
Avian flu is deadly for the animals themselves, but is generally harmless to humans.
However, in rare cases, H5N1 can also be transmitted to humans and cause serious illnesses.