Marseille (AFP)

"All negative on the Covid-19 test", the last people evacuated from China and repatriated to the south of France left the firefighters training center in Aix-en-Provence on Sunday where they had been confined for 14 days, said the prefecture.

Arrived in Aix-en-Provence via London, these 35 people had been evacuated from Wuhan, epicenter of the epidemic, on February 9. They were given a certificate of "non-contagiousness", said the prefecture to AFP.

The first departures took place around 7:00 a.m. and were scheduled to last until the end of the morning, she added.

By February 16, 78 returnees had already left the firefighters' training center after their quarantine period.

Some 220 returnees also left February 14 and 16 a vacation home in Carry-le-Rouet, near Marseille, after two weeks of confinement.

Friday, around thirty other French returnees from Wuhan joined the village of Brandille (Calvados) to respect the 14-day quarantine.

In an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien Dimanche, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran considered "very likely" the possibility of new cases in France.

France is preparing for a possible "epidemic" of Covid-19, said the minister, who said he was "attentive to the situation in Italy".

Of the twelve confirmed cases of infection with the new coronavirus in France, only one patient remains hospitalized, while a Chinese tourist died in Paris and ten other patients are cured.

© 2020 AFP