The France health ministry records the first death as a 60-year-old Frenchman dies of a Coronavirus infection in Paris on Tuesday-Wednesday night.
The first victim had been an 80-year-old Chinese tourist, who died in hospital in mid-February.
France has reported four new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, including two people returning from Italy, bringing the total number of infections to 17.
One of the four people still being treated has been listed in critical condition in the northern city of Amiens.
Two of the four had recently returned from the Lombardy region of Italy, which is at the center of Europe’s biggest outbreak of the disease with 10 dead.
The French government has asked citizens returning from Lombardy and the neighboring Veneto region to avoid all non-essential outings and keep their children home from school.
