French president calls on Europeans to coordinate action to contain coronavirus

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged European countries to urgently coordinate action to curb the COVID-19 outbreak.

"In order to face COVID-19 ... I call on our European partners to take urgent action to coordinate health measures, research efforts and our economic response," Macron said in a tweet.

He told his European partners that "unity is strength," inviting them to "act together now."

Macron will hold a video conference on Tuesday with other European Union (EU) leaders and with European Council President Charles Michel to hammer out a common response to the virus crisis, BFMTV news channel reported citing the president's office.

Early on Monday, France's Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stressed that Europe needs to come up with "a strong, massive, coordinated response" to cope with the economic fallout from coronavirus.

"We must have general mobilization. We have to work on a recovery plan based on fiscal measures and budgetary measures, tax cuts, so that as soon as the epidemiological crisis is over, we can revive the economic machine," Le Maire told France Inter radio.

France has 1,191 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Two new deaths were recorded on Monday, bringing the death toll to 21, announced the Ministry of Health on its website.

In Italy, the second hardest-hit country outside China, more than 7,000 people have been confirmed to have the virus and hundreds have died, forcing authorities to place millions of people in lockdown.