French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called on citizens to learn to live with the coronavirus after infections spiralled higher in recent weeks.

Taking to Twitter, Macron said, “To overcome the health crisis, we must learn to live with the virus”.

Pour surmonter la crise sanitaire, nous devons apprendre à vivre avec le virus. Il n’y a pas de fatalité : si nous faisons preuve d’unité et de sens des responsabilités, nous réussirons.

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— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 25, 2020

Macron said he had chaired a defence council over the epidemic situation “to organise with the best possible conditions taking into account the epidemic evolution,” the start of the new academic year and work condition, after social mixing during summer vacation had led to faster virus spread and increasing clusters.

The president also pledged “clear rules everywhere to allow everyone to regain confidence.”

France has confirmed 3,304 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, higher than Monday’s 1,955, but lower than the post-lockdown daily record of 4,897 posted on Sunday. Some 33 active clusters were detected, bringing the total to 352.

According to the health authorities, France had conducted over 755,000 virus tests over the past week, and over seven million since the start of the epidemic.

Meanwhile, the number of those who need intensive care rose by 11 to 410. Some 30,544 people in France have succumbed to the respiratory illness, representing a single-day increase of 22.

In July, Macron’s critics have accused him of initially underestimating and then mishandling a crisis that has now caused more than 30,000 deaths in the country.

France was imposed lockdown since March 17 in a bid to slow the spread of the epidemic and officials have repeatedly warned it will take time for the measures to bear fruit.

French scientists expected a second wave of the coronavirus could hit the country in autumn or winter as a result of social mixing and absence of distancing and barrier measures during the summer holidays, according to the local media.