Saint-Etienne (AFP)

There remains only one patient hospitalized in France for an infection with the new coronavirus out of the four that were still Tuesday, said Friday the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, during a trip to Saint-Etienne.

In total out of the twelve confirmed cases hospitalized in France, eight were admitted to Paris, three to Lyon and one to Saint-Etienne.

"No more patients with coronavirus are hospitalized in Saint-Etienne (...) There remains today only one patient hospitalized in this setting, near here, in Lyon, from which we await the next discharge ", said the minister on the sidelines of a visit to a laboratory at the city's School of Mines.

The four people hospitalized in Lyon and Saint-Etienne were part of the group of six Britons contaminated at the end of January by a compatriot returning from Singapore, during a stay in a chalet in Contamines-Montjoie, in the Alps.

In France, only one death from the Covid-19 has been recorded, that of an 80-year-old Chinese tourist a week ago at the Bichat hospital in Paris.

Friday, a third plane chartered by the French government since the beginning of the crisis repatriated from Wuhan - the epicenter of the virus epidemic in China - 28 French and 36 nationals of other countries of the European Union to the Roissy airport.

French returnees have been placed in quarantine in a holiday village in Calvados (Normandy) where they must be confined there for 14 days. The other European passengers had to be taken care of, upon arrival, by the authorities of their country.

Since the start of the epidemic, more than 300 people had already been repatriated from China and placed in quarantine, in a holiday center in Carry-le-Rouet (Bouches-du-Rhône) and in the premises of the National School superior of the officers of the fire brigade (Ensosp) in Aix-en-Provence. Most of them came out with the certainty that they were not infected with the new coronavirus.

In China, the death toll now exceeds 2,200 dead and 75,000 people infected, according to the latest official figures released Thursday.

© 2020 AFP