NewsletterNewsletter No. 203 – November 2025
DISMISSAL FOR ECONOMIC REASONS: A dismissal for economic reasons pronounced before receiving the responses from companies contacted in relation with a potential redeployment process has no real and serious cause.
An employee had been dismissed for economic reasons, first as a precautionary measure, then definitively after accepting a professional securing contract. He contested the dismissal, arguing that no effective and serious search for redeployment opportunities had been carried out, while the employer maintained that the companies contacted for potential redeployment were under no obligation to respond. The French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) ruled in favor of the employee, considering that “the company, which had sent (…) letters seeking redeployment opportunities to three companies, (…) had notified the employee of his dismissal without waiting to know whether one of the three group companies it had contacted for that purpose had any possibility of redeploying the employee.” It concluded that “there was no justification for a prior, effective and serious redeployment search for the employee and that, consequently, the dismissal was without a real and serious cause” » (Cass. Soc. 5 November 2025, No. 24-14.758).
EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION PLAN (PSE): The eligibility criteria for the measures provided for under an employment protection plan must be defined in advance and must be objectively verifiable.
An employment protection plan adopted by collective agreement provided for an early retirement scheme granting a paid exemption from work until employees aged at least 55 with a minimum of 15 years of service were eligible for a full-rate basic social security pension. These conditions were assessed on the date of the bilateral termination agreement, which itself was not subject to a fixed deadline. An employee requested the benefit of this measure in February 2016. Her request was refused in April 2016 on the grounds that she did not meet the minimum age requirement of 55, which she was to reach in November 2016. Yet, the PSE (i.e., employment protection plan) did not set any deadline for signing the termination agreements. The employee therefore claimed her right to benefit from this measure before the Labor Court. Based on the principle of equal treatment, the Cour de Cassation held that the plan “did not provide any deadline for signing the termination agreement and that, during the implementation of the collective agreement, the fulfilment of the age and seniority conditions depended on the employer’s discretionary choice of the date on which the termination agreement was signed, so that the eligibility conditions for the plan were neither defined in advance nor verifiable.” This resulted in a breach of the principle of equal treatment, not justified by any objective and relevant reasons (Cass. Soc. 5 November 2025, No. 24-11.723).
CLASS ACTION: A class action is admissible for discrimination that began before the entry into force of the law that established such actions.
Law No. 2016-1547 of 18 November 2016 modernizing 21st century justice, which introduced class actions in trade-union matters, limited their application to events occurring after its entry into force. Despite this limitation, the Federation of Metalworkers (CGT) initiated a class action concerning discriminatory practices affecting some of its members, prior to 2016. The trial judges had rejected the claim, holding that the facts at issue had occurred prior to the law’s entry into force and therefore could not be subject to it. The Cour de Cassation held the opposite, finding that the judges should have assessed whether the facts at issue continued after the entry into force of the 2016 law. Thus, before dismissing the application of said law, the trial judges must determine whether “the factual elements, presented as suggesting the existence of discrimination […] continued to produce their effects after the entry into force of the law” (Cass. Soc. 5 November 2025, No. 24-15.269).
DISMISSAL FOR SERIOUS MISCONDUCT: Sexually-oriented remarks made by a sales director, even under the guise of humor, justify dismissal for serious misconduct.
In this case, a sales director had been dismissed for serious misconduct after posting sexually-oriented, sexist, racist, and stigmatizing messages in a discussion group, targeting a colleague’s sexual orientation. He challenged the disciplinary action, arguing that these exchanges fell within his private life and were intended to be humorous. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument and held that the remarks, “unacceptable within the company, especially given their repeated nature (…) had offended certain employees.” Referring to Article L. 4122-1 of the Labor Code, the Employment Division of the Cour de Cassation upheld the Court of Appeal’s assessment that “the employee’s behavior, at the workplace and during working hours, and which was likely to harm the psychological health of other employees, made it impossible for him to remain within the company” (Cass. Soc. 5 November 2025, No. 24-11.048).
TELEWORK: The implementation of telework prescribed for medical reasons cannot be refused solely because the employee objects to a visit from their employer to their home.
In this case, an occupational physician recommended that an employee be granted days of telework. The employer refused after the employee declined to allow him to visit her home. The employee brought the case before the Labor Court, arguing that the employer’s failure to implement telework breached its duty of care and that requiring a right of entry into her home violated her privacy. The Cour de Cassation overturned the appellate decision, stating that “the employer had refused to implement the recommended telework solely because the employee had opposed the visit to her home, from which the Court should have inferred a breach of the employer’s duty of care” (Cass. Soc. 13 November 2025, No. 24-14.322).
EXPATRIATION: In the case of an expatriate employee, the classification of undeclared work applies only to obligations provided for under French law.
An Italian employee had been hired by a French company to work in Belgium. Some clauses in his employment contract referred to French law, while others referred to Belgian law. The employee brought proceedings before a French court, alleging in particular the offense of undeclared work, on the grounds that part of his remuneration had been paid outside the framework provided for under Belgian law. The Cour de Cassation rejected these claims, ruling that “the offense of undeclared work by concealment of salaried employment (…) is not established where a French employer of an expatriate employee has intentionally evaded declarations relating to wages or related social-security contributions to the social-security institutions of the competent Member State of the European Union.” Therefore, the irregularities attributed to the employer fall solely under the jurisdiction of the Belgian authorities: fraud against the Belgian system cannot, in itself, constitute an offense of undeclared work under French law (Cass. Soc. 5 November 2025, No. 23-10.637).