According to the ministry, the number of confirmed cases now stands at 128,442, up 1,607 over 24 hours. The figure stood at 129,859 on Tuesday but was tweaked a day after Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that France would not end its coronavirus lockdown unless the number of new cases falls below 3,000 per day.
"It's a statistical readjustment linked to a change in the sampling", a ministry spokesman said.
The death toll has increased 1.8% over 24 hours, versus 1.6% on Tuesday and 1.9% on Monday. Out of the 24,087 total, 15,053 fatalities occurred in hospitals, a figure up 1.6%, and 9,034 in nursing homes, up 2%.
As Britain added nursing homes deaths to the tally from hospitals to give a total of 26,097 fatalities, it became the third-most affected country in the world behind the United States and Italy and ahead of Spain and France.
The number of people in French hospitals with the COVID-19 infection fell to 26,834 from 27,484 on Tuesday, recording a 2.4% decline, its sharpest since a downward trend began 15 days ago.The number of people in intensive care fell 4.1% to 4,207, a figure almost half of the 7,148 on April 8 and down for the 21st consecutive day.