Prime Minister Jean Castex announced the suspension to parliament.
“We note that the situation is getting worse and so we have decided to suspend all flights between Brazil and France until further notice,” Castex said, drawing scattered applause from lawmakers.
Although France has seen comparatively few known cases of the P.1 variant striking Brazil, the ravages it is causing in Latin America's largest nation are increasingly raising alarm bells in France.
“Proportionally, we are seeing a retreat of these variants because they are less contagious than the English one, "Veran said.
Even before the flight suspension, passenger traffic from Brazil had already been drastically curtailed by pandemic travel limits. The transport minister said this week that as few as 50 people per day were flying into Paris'main airport from Brazil, down from 50,000 per week before the health crisis.