A patient treated in a hospital near Paris on 27 December for suspected pneumonia actually had the coronavirus, his doctor has said.
This means the virus may have arrived in Europe almost a month earlier than previously thought.
Dr Yves Cohen said a swab taken at the time was recently tested, and came back positive for Covid-19.
The patient, who has since recovered, said he had no idea where he caught the virus as he had not travelled abroad.
Knowing who was the first case is key to understanding how the virus spread.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is possible more early cases will come to light, and spokesman Christian Lindmeier urged countries to check records for similar cases in order to gain a clearer picture of the outbreak.
The French health ministry told the BBC that the government was obtaining confirmation on the case and that it would consider further investigations if they proved necessary.
France is not the only country where subsequent testing points to earlier cases. Two weeks ago, a post-mortem examination carried out in California revealed that the first coronavirus-related death in the US was almost a month earlier than previously thought.
What do we know about the new case?
Dr Cohen, head of emergency medicine at Avicenne and Jean-Verdier hospitals near Paris, said the patient was a 43-year-old man from Bobigny, north-east of Paris.
He told the BBC’s Newsday programme that the patient must have been infected between 14 and 22 December, as coronavirus symptoms take between five and 14 days to appear.
The patient, Amirouche Hammar was admitted to hospital on 27 December exhibiting a dry cough, a fever and trouble breathing – symptoms which would later become known as main indications of coronavirus.
This was four days before the WHO’s China country office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause being detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Mr Hammar told French broadcaster BFMTV that he had not left France before falling sick. Dr Cohen said while two of the patient’s children had also fallen ill, his wife had not shown any symptoms.
But Dr Cohen pointed out that the patient’s wife worked at a supermarket near Charles de Gaulle airport and could have come into contact with people who had recently arrived from China. The patient’s wife said that “often customers would come directly from the airport, still carrying their suitcases”.
“We’re wondering whether she was asymptomatic,” Dr Cohen said.
