It was the second consecutive day that France's daily number of COVID-19 cases topped 18,000 on Thursday, following Wednesday's record daily tally of 18,746. To date, France's cumulative number of COVID-19 cases rose to 671,638.

In the 24-hour span, another 76 patients had died of the respiratory disease, bringing the death toll to 32,521. The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment now stood at 7,624, including 1,427 in intensive care.

"The health situation continues, unfortunately, to deteriorate. There are in France, every day, more and more people infected," Health Minister Olivier Veran said at a press conference, specifying that 116 out of 100,000 people are now carriers of the virus at the national level.

In four of the country's main cities -- Lille, Grenoble, Lyon and Saint-Etienne -- where the sanitary situation has worsened, "the maximum alert for coronavirus has been decided by the President of the Republic and it will be effective from Saturday morning," Veran said.

The highest alert level implies additional restrictive measures for public places, including closure of bars, pools and gyms, reinforced health protocol in restaurants and public gatherings restriction.

The same extra anti-COVID-19 rules have already been put in place in Paris and its inner suburbs, Marseille and the overseas region of Guadeloupe.

As the world is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, 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, there were 193 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 42 of them were in clinical trials, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).