British tourists will be banned from entering France from Saturday, 18 December 2021, due to the increase in the Omicron COVID-19 variant, according to French government spokesman Gabriel Attal.
The French administration qualified its statement by intimating that only "compelling reasons" - which do not include tourism and business - would allow such travel.
Without defining what those reasons would be, it said “for those able to travel from the UK under a compelling reason, there will be the obligation to register the address of their stay in France".
Attal told BFM television the measures will include reducing the validity of pre-departure PCR tests to 24 hours from 48 for travellers arriving from Britain.
He said they will have to test again on arrival and isolate "in a place they choose" for at least 48 hours pending the result.
UK transport secretary Grant Shapps meanwhile tweeted, "to confirm, I have liaised with my French counterpart, and hauliers will remain exempt".
Brittany Ferries has described the measures as a "hammer blow to our Christmas season".
Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: "Blanket country measures are a damaging backwards step and never work."
The Delta variant of COVID-19 remains dominant in France and its government is holding a virus security meeting on Friday to examine growing pressure on hospitals from rising infections in recent weeks.
Another 78,610 COVID cases were reported in the UK on Wednesday, 15 December 2021 - the highest daily number since the start of the pandemic.
Airlines are also likely to be impacted by the ban.
At the time of writing, share prices for easyJet PLC, RyanAir Hoildings PLC and International Airlines Consolidate Group (IAg) were 507.40, 14.16 and 129.78 respectively.