The French military will support public services strained by the coronavirus epidemic, President Emmanuel Macron has said, as the country's death toll topped 1,300.

Two more doctors have died after contracting the coronavirus in France, officials said on Monday, a day after the country reported the first death of a doctor treating COVID-19 patients.

A French doctor caring for coronavirus patients has died of the illness, authorities said Sunday, the first such death in the country that is grappling with the mushrooming outbreak. 

President Emmanuel Macron announced Saturday that Iran has freed a French researcher imprisoned in the Islamic republic after France released an Iranian threatened with extradition to the US.

Macron "is happy to announce the release of Roland Marchal, imprisoned in Iran since June 2019" but he "urges the Iranian authorities to immediately free" Fariba Adelkhah, an anthropologist, his office said.

A French high-speed TGV train travelling from the eastern city of Strasbourg to Paris derailed on Thursday after an embankment collapsed into the tracks, seriously injuring the driver and hurting 20 others.

French state-owned energy giant EDF on Saturday began shutting down the country's oldest nuclear power plant after 43 years in operation.

France will start closing its oldest atomic power plant on Saturday after 43 years in operation, the first in a series of reactor shutdowns but hardly a signal the country will reduce its reliance on nuclear energy anytime soon.

France on Wednesday insisted on a "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a day after US President Donald Trump unveiled a Middle East peace plan Paris said it would "carefully study". 

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, on a charm offensive to back his bid to oust his country's leader, claimed Saturday to have the "firm support" of French President Emmanuel Macron.

French protesters prepared to hit the streets on Friday for a fresh day of demonstrations against the  government's pension reform, which will be officially unveiled after weeks of strikes by unions warning that millions of people will have to work longer.