BERLIN: Germany plans to enforce strict quarantine restrictions on travelers from France where new cases of the coronavirus are exploding, two government sources said on Thursday, seeking to prevent a cross-border spill of the outbreak.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) plans to declare France a high risk region on Friday, a move which requires all incoming passengers to go into quarantine for 10 days. This could be ended with a negative test no sooner than five days after arrival.

Germany is struggling to tame the pandemic despite a lockdown introduced in November that was recently extended until mid-April.

Still, the number of cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period, the key measure used by German authorities, stands at 312 in France, significantly above Germany's 113.

Germany plans to make it mandatory for all air travelers to produce a negative test before boarding flights to Europe's largest economy, even if they are not traveling from countries designated as high risk.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was first to report the plan for stricter quarantine rules for travellers from France.