French President Emmanuel Macron says his country will be fighting the virus until at least the middle of next year as cases there surged past a million.
On Friday France recorded more than 40,000 new cases and 298 deaths. Other nations including Russia, Poland, Italy and Switzerland also saw new highs.
The World Health Organization said the spike in European cases was a critical moment in the fight against the virus.
It called for quick action to prevent health services being overwhelmed.
Daily infections in Europe have more than doubled in the past 10 days. The continent has now seen a total of 7.8m cases and about 247,000 deaths.
"The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
Globally there have been more than 42m cases and 1.1m deaths.
Speaking on a visit to a hospital in the Paris region, Mr Macron said scientists were telling him that they believed the virus would be present "at best until next summer", he said.
But he said it was still too early to say whether France would go into a new full or partial lockdown.
An overnight curfew in the country is being extended to about two-thirds of the country - 46 million people - from Friday night for six weeks.
