Earlier this month, the UK's Department for Health and Social Care said that France had been identified as a "high-risk COVID-19 destination" due to levels of the Beta variant, stressing that the government's top priority is to halt the spread of the coronavirus, "including protecting our borders from the threat of variants".

France's European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune has described the UK's move to scrap quarantine requirements for all fully vaccinated travellers arriving from Europe except France as "incomprehensible".

Earlier this month, the British government announced that from 19 July onwards, UK residents who have received two COVID-19 shots won't need to isolate for ten days upon their return from Portugal, Greece, and a host of other so-called "amber list" countries.

France, however, was excluded from the list due to the rising number of COVID cases related to the Beta strain of the virus, which was first identified in South Africa and which is believed to be some 50% more transmittable that the original COVID-19 variant.