Confirming an earlier forecast, France's National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) on Wednesday said French economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the first three months of 2013.
In its economic report, Insee attributed the sluggish performance of the second largest European economy to weak exports and sluggish investment. The country's growth engines fell by 0.4 percent and 1 percent respectively.
In addition, the total domestic expenditure weighed down on GDP growth with a 0.2-percent drop compared to a stable performance a quarter earlier, the report said.
In an estimate of 2013 growth released last week, the official statistics agency expected French economy to accelerate by 0.2 percent in the second quarter before stagnating and inching up by 0.1 percent in the third and fourth quarters respectively.
For the whole year, poor household consumption and ailing investment would push the country into recession, it added.
The government had previously expected a slight growth of 0.1 percent in 2013 before hoping to grow 1.2 percent in 2014 and 2 percent annually between 2015 and 2017.
However, with wane economic activities and high joblessness, the Socialists' prospects to create more wealth and trim jobless look dim and prompted fresh deluge of criticism over their policy, widely considered ineffective to fix economic troubles.
"The government's growth target is unlikely to be achieved this year because there are no reasons to witness better performance than last year with continued feeble domestic consumption and weak industrial output. So no a strong growth recovery in 2013," Eric Heyer, an economist from l'OFCE, told Xinhua.