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Objectives: Our objective was to identify missed opportunities for the use of pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in people with recently acquired HIV, factors associated with PrEP knowledge, and reasons for not using PrEP. Design: This was a French national cross‐sectional multicentre study enrolling people diagnosed with recent HIV (incomplete Western blot or negative HIV test in the previous 6 months) in 28 HIV clinical centres. Data were gathered using a self‐administered questionnaire (SAQ). Method: We analysed missed opportunities for PrEP use via a retrospective prep cascade. Factors associated with prior knowledge of PrEP and reasons for PrEP non‐use among those who knew about PrEP were described using univariate and multivariate logistic regression models. Results: Of the 224 eligible patients, 185 completed the SAQ and 168 (91%) were eligible for PrEP. Of these, 90% reported seeing at least one physician during the previous year, 26% received information about PrEP, and 5% used PrEP. Factors independently associated with a higher probability of knowing about PrEP were being a man who has sex with men, being aged 25–30 years (vs older), undergoing HIV screening at least once every semester (vs less often; odds ratio [OR] 4.11; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.00–8.45), and practicing chemsex (OR 3.19; 95% CI 1.12–9.10). Fear of side effects and a low perceived risk of HIV infection were the two most common reasons for not using PrEP (N = 40 [33.33%] and N = 34 [28.3%], respectively). Conclusions: We found two gaps in the retrospective PrEP cascade: insufficient provision of PrEP information by healthcare providers (mainly general practitioners) and low PrEP acceptability by informed, eligible patients. More diverse healthcare providers need to be involved in PrEP prescription, and at‐risk people need to be sensitized to the risk of HIV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]