French Health Minister François Braun said the government had so far opened about 100 monkeypox vaccination centers and that more than 6,000 people had been vaccinated as a precaution.
About 1,700 people have contracted monkeypox in France, the health minister said on Monday.
Most of the infections were in the Paris region, he said, adding that a dedicated main vaccination center would open in the capital this week.
He said more staff would be mobilized to provide "special support" and that medical students would soon be trained to administer injections.
Braun said he did not see a major threat to the general public and said the government would focus its vaccination campaign on target groups deemed most at risk.
He urged patients who have lesions or other symptoms to self-isolate as soon as possible.
More vaccines are needed
"The profile (of the patients) is that they are mainly men who have had sexual contact with other men, but one can also become infected by contact with the patient's blisters," Braun said in an interview with BFM TV, in which he reported the number of infections.
"We easily have sufficient doses for the populations most at risk from this disease," Braun added.
Paris City Hall on Monday called on the state to take extraordinary measures to get more doses of the vaccine and additional personnel to administer the vaccine in the capital.
Greens MP representing health Anne Souyris said the 30,000 doses set aside by the Department of Health were far from enough for prevention.
"We would need ten times that amount to vaccinate all the people at risk in the Ile-de-France region," she told France Info.
The LGBT umbrella group Inter-LGBT said there was "lack of preparation and transparency from the government" and raised concerns about difficulties in prescribing vaccines and "insufficient supply of vaccine doses".
First revealed in 1970
The World Health Organization said on Saturday that the rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak was a global health crisis.
So far this year, there have been more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox in more than 75 countries and five deaths in Africa.
In recent outbreaks, the viral disease has spread mainly among men who have sex with men outside of Africa, where it is endemic.
A smallpox-like virus first identified in humans in the 1970s, monkeypox is less dangerous and contagious than smallpox, which was eradicated in the 1980s.
Ninety-five percent of cases were transmitted through sexual activity, according to a study of 528 people in 16 countries published in the New England Journal of Medicine - the largest study to date.
The first symptoms of monkeypox are fever, headache, muscle and back pain within five days.
Subsequently, rashes appear on the face, hands and feet, followed by lesions, spots and finally scabs.
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