The COVID-19 pandemic is now "under control" in France, the head of the government's scientific advisory council said Friday, as the country cautiously lifts the lockdown imposed in March to contain the outbreak.

The French government on Wednesday banned treatment of COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine, a controversial and potentially harmful drug that US President Donald Trump has said he is taking preventively.

Left-leaning lawmakers defected Tuesday to rob President Emmanuel Macron's party of its outright majority in France's National Assembly in a symbolic but non-paralysing setback for the embattled reformist leader.

French economic activity plunged 27 percent in April compared with its expected trajectory before the coronavirus pandemic, the Bank of France said Tuesday.

France said Sunday that it would not quarantine anyone arriving from the EU, the Schengen area or Britain due to the coronavirus, as it prepares to start easing confinement measures after two months of lockdown.

Police fought running battles overnight in Paris's low-income northern suburbs with residents alleging heavy-handedness by officers enforcing France's strict coronavirus lockdown.

President Emmanuel Macron is on Monday expected to warn France its lockdown to combat the coronavirus must go on for several more weeks at least, while also outlining how the country will recover from the crisis.

In its worst performance since 1945, the French economy shrank around six percent in the first quarter of this year as the coronavirus pandemic decimated business activity, the Bank of France said Wednesday.

More than 200,000 people have answered France's call for idled workers to help crop and livestock farmers desperate for extra hands as summer approaches, Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume said Tuesday.

"Today we have more than 200,000 applicants, and we have 5,000 recruiters who are organising the work," Guillaume told France 2 television.

A man in south-east France attacked several people with a knife on Saturday, killing two and wounding seven, before being arrested, sources told AFP.