Prime Minister Jean Castex said the infection rates were not falling as fast as the government had hoped after a lockdown was imposed in late October.
A stay-at-home order will be lifted as planned on 15 December, when the daily 20:00-06:00 curfew will begin.
The measure will not be waived on New Year's Eve, to prevent big gatherings.
The government had conditioned the easing of restrictions on the number of new cases falling to around 5,000 a day. But that number remains well above 10,000 - on Thursday, there were 13,750 infections.
