“This is well below the European average,” he said.
In Germany, first-time asylum applications rose by more than 50 percent last year to 329,120, official figures showed earlier this month.
In France, the largest number of first-time applicants last year were from Afghanistan, for the sixth year in a row, with 17,500 Afghans seeking asylum away from their war-torn country, OFPRA data shows.
Other large contingents that applied for protection were from Bangladesh, Turkey, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea.