Over 1,000 French Jews may have died from coronavirus, the head of France’s Jewish burial society has indicated.

The figures were reported by Israeli daily Makor Rishon, in the first time that the France’s Jewish burial society has reported a death toll since the beginning of the pandemic in France.  

Rabbi Serge Ben-Nai’m, the President of the French Chevra Kadisha, was quoted as saying that 1,075 Jews had died of coronavirus itself in France.

Makor Rishon indicated that up to 160 had been transported to Israel for burial, and that upper estimates were speaking of up to 2,000 deaths within the Jewish community.

These numbers would make France’s Jewish community, the world’s third largest, the worst affected in Europe. 

As in Britain, the French Jewish death toll is dependent on the number of Covid-19 related burials reported by the community’s burial societies and does not include Jews not buried in a Jewish ceremony.

France’s strict lockdown measures were eased on Monday, as businesses, shops and primary schools re-opened and people were given permission to move freely up to 100 kilometres from their homes.

France has been one of Europe’s worst affected coronavirus hotspots, after Britain, Italy and Spain and has suffered more than 26,000 deaths.