Fans barred from Tour de France stage finishes

By Julien Pretot

CLERMONT FERRAND, France (Reuters) - No spectators will be allowed at any of the finishes of the Tour de France's stages as the race heads through regions labelled as coronavirus "red zones", organisers said on Friday.

“The system will sensibly be the same as on Paris-Nice,” Yann Le Moenner, the director general of Tour owners Amaury Sport Organisation, told Reuters.

In March, no spectators were allowed at the finish of the Paris-Nice race, with a no-spectator line drawn 300 metres from the finish line, and within 100 metres from the start podium.

The measure is intended to prevent mass gatherings as fears grow in France of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

French administrative regions, known as departments, are classified as red zones when the spread of COVID-19 infections is high, with more than 50 new cases recorded per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days.

The number of new, confirmed COVID-19 cases in France rose by 9,406 over the last 24 hours, the country's health ministry said on Friday, to stand at a total of 363,350.

The number of COVID-19 deaths also climbed by 40 over the last 24 hours, to reach a total of 30,893.

France's has the seventh-highest COVID-19 death toll in the world.

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)