Boris Johnson has said ministers will be “absolutely ruthless” in deciding whether travellers from France must quarantine for 14 days on arrival in the UK.
The Prime Minister said the officials would be looking at the latest data later on Thursday amid mounting concern about the rising numbers of cases in the country.
The prospect France could be removed from the list of countries exempt from the quarantine requirements will cause dismay to thousands of British holidaymakers currently in the country.
It will also come as a bitter blow to the hard-pressed French tourism industry which relies heavily on visitors from the UK.
“We have got to be absolutely ruthless about this, even with our closest and dearest friends and partners.
“I think everybody understands that,” he told reporters during a visit to Northern Ireland.
“We will be looking at the data a bit later on this afternoon, looking exactly where France and other countries are getting to.
“We can’t be remotely complacent about our own situation.
“Everybody understands that in a pandemic you don’t allow our population to be reinfected or the disease to come back in.
“That is why the quarantine measures are very important and we have to apply them in a very strict way.”
