France reports over 16,000 new COVID cases, 46 deaths in past 24 hours

People wearing protective face masks walk in a busy street in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) - The number of new coronavirus infections in France was 16,101 in the last 24 hours, down from a record of almost 27,000 the previous day, health ministry data showed on Sunday.

The figures took the cumulative total to 734,974 since the start of the year. The number of deaths from the virus increased by 46 to 32,730.

New cases are generally lower on Sunday because fewer tests are taken over the weekend.

(Reporting by John Irish and Jean-Michel Belot; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)