All you should know to work in France

If you intend to work in France, you should first understand a few things about the local work culture and environment. You may have heard that France has a deep-rooted tradition of strikes and social movements. This is actually kind of true. Since the 20th century, unions have maintained and ingrained a culture of confrontation and mistrust with the corporate world and the government.

Today, this explains (at least partly) why work conditions are extensively regulated and labor laws tend to favor workers to equalize the employer-employee power balance (which, in France, is seen as fundamentally unfavorable to the employee). This is also reflected in the protective ideology of the French welfare system.

Here, we cover the basic information you need in order to understand what it is like to work in France. We will talk about topics like contract types, contract renewal, trial period, resignation, termination, work period and unemployment insurance.

Permanent contracts (CDI) and fixed-term contracts (CDD)

A CDI (Contrat a Durée Indeterminée, in French) is a standard permanent contract. Its duration is not known and therefore, not specified. It allows you to work for your employer indefinitely, unless one of the two parties terminates the contract. If the contract is broken on your part, as an employee (resignation or taking an act), or on the part of your boss (dismissal or contractual termination), you must respect the notice period stipulated in your employment contract.

Contrary to a CDI, a CDD (Contrat à Durée Déterminée) is a fixed-term contract. It has a fixed and previously agreed upon duration. This means that your function is temporary within the company. CDDs are typically used in the following cases:

• For the replacement of an absent employee (illness, leave, maternity …) temporarily, except in the case of a strike;
• In the event of a temporary increase in activity;
• For seasonal activities like tourism or agricultural activities;
• Replacement of an employee temporarily working part-time.

Fixed-term contracts renewal

Fixed-term contracts can be renewed up to 2 times, depending on the conditions. First of all, the total duration of all CDD work periods can’t not exceed 18 months. Otherwise, the position would have to be considered as a permanent job. Second, there is a mandatory waiting period between two contracts, which is:

• A third of the duration of the initial contract if it last for at least 14 days.
• Half the duration of the initial contract if it was for less than or equal to 14 days, including renewal.

Trial period

During the trial period, either the employee or the employer can put an end to the contract at any time, without justification. This way, both parties can decide whether they want to follow-through with their choices. The maximum duration for a trial period is set by law at 4 months, renewable once. However, most if not all, companies stick to a standard three months probation for permanent contracts.

For a CDD, the trial period depends on the term of the contract. If the contract’s duration is lower or equal to 6 months, the trial will be calculated as 1 day per week of work, within a maximum of 2 weeks. For CDDs longer than 6 months, the trial period is 1 month.

If you choose to back out during the probation period, you will not be eligible for unemployment insurance.

Resignation

The employee is free to terminate his work contract at his own discretion and without any possible opposition from the employer with a prior notice of 3 months for indefinite contracts. For definite contracts, this period depends on the duration of the contract (1 day per week of work) but cannot exceed 2 weeks. The prior notice period may be shortened if both parties so desire.

You may wonder: how does one resign in France? Well, the standard procedure consists in formalizing your resignation in a written letter to your direct superior (make sure your letter is dated and signed). There is no particular need to provide a justification.

Before writing your resignation letter right away, take a look at the Mutual agreement termination section. You might learn some useful tricks to end your contract on the best terms.

Termination

Generally speaking, the labor code in France is quite protective for employees. As a consequence, your company must have legally valid reasons to terminate an employee’s contract. If you have been terminated or are expecting to be laid off, you will find some valuable information here.

First of all, the termination of a work contract can be unilateral (company puts an end to the contract) or bilateral (mutual agreement). Read both options carefully; there may be relevant information for your case in both sections.

Unilateral termination

In order to dismiss an employee, the employer must justify a real and serious cause of termination. That is, an objective reason based on existing and materially verifiable facts. In general, all acceptable causes fall into one of the following categories:

• Termination for personal reasons: it is a non-disciplinary procedure, which means it occurs when the employee’s behavior is not deliberately wrong but hinders the proper functioning of the company (i.e. professional inadequacy or lack of results).
• Disciplinary termination: this procedure is used in case of serious misconduct or error (‘faute grave’, which is a well-defined terminology in the French labor law). During a disciplinary termination, the employer is not required to pay any compensation to the employee and there is no prior notice required. If the error or misconduct was intentional, then the employee commited a ‘faute lourde’ and the company is even entitled to sue for covering its potential losses.
• Termination for economic motives: this type of termination is exclusively used for restructuring and reorganization. In this case, the employee’s job is being eliminated or seriously revisited, so the company is entitled to terminate his contract. The dismissal may be individual or collective, but if more than 10 employees are involved over a period of 30 days, the company must submit a ‘Job Safeguarding Plan’ and engage in a long and complex procedure supervised by the work administration.
• Termination for medical incapacity: the company can dismiss an employee whenever he/she is declared unfit by an Occupational Physician. From this moment on, the employer has one month to initiate the procedure. The company is legally obligated to look for a new position compatible with the employee’s condition and to validate any offer with the personnel’s representatives. If there is no viable relocation option, the employee is dismissed without any notice period as he/she is unable to perform his activities.

Mutual agreement

Work contracts can be terminated using a mutual agreement procedure (Rupture Conventionnelle in French). This procedure makes the process quicker and, contrary to the reasons presented above, appeals to a negotiation rather than a litigation. During this procedure, the employer and the employee will agree on the conditions for the termination of the contract (and in particular, the value of the severance package). The amount payed by the employer must be superior to the minimum legal compensation, which depends on the person’s age and experience in the company. You can simulate the minimum legal value here.

The parties will formalize their agreement in a contract (convention, in French). Once signed, each party has 15 days to back out from the deal. The convention must then be approved by the work administration to be validated.

Working time

The standard working week for a full-time contract in France is 35 hours  (which would typically be a Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00 schedule). However, it is possible to work more than that and in fact, many people in France do. When we look at the actual numbers, the average weekly working time for full-time employees is a little over 39 hours.

There are various mechanisms that allow you to work more than 35 hours per week in France. Here we will cover the main ones : overtime, RTT and the Executive Status (Statut Cadre, in French).

Overtime

For full-time workers who are not eligible for the statut Cadre, any hour worked beyond the 35th of the week is considered overtime work. It is important to keep track of your overtime work because it is worth 25 to 50% more (depending on the number of extra hours).

RTTs

Instead of paying extra for the overtime hours worked by their employees, companies can choose to compensate them with rest days called RTT (Récupération du Temps de Travail). In this case, a company agreement will specify which employees are eligible and how many rest days will be given as a compensation.

Le statut Cadre (Executive status)

For management and corporate positions, where overtime hours are commonplace and hard to keep track of, companies can apply a provision of the French law called the Executive status, or statut cadre. The concepts around this status are kind of confusing (even for natives) so bear with us!

The cadre status is especially designed for employees with a high level of autonomy, who manage their own schedule and require very little supervision. There are a whole lot of special provisions for these employees, but one of the most important is about working time. There are basically two models within the statut cadre: the forfait-jours and the forfait-heures.

The forfait-jours (literally, the day-package) defines a number of days worked per year. It does not specify the number of working hours and therefore, any extra hours performed by cadres under the forfait-jour system will not be counted (nor paid).

The forfait-heures (literally, the hour-package), on the other hand, defines a number of hours worked per year. The employee is then free to manage his schedule and to adjust his working time to his/her workload. The standard forfait-heure contract considers an average work period of 42 hours per week. Just like with forfait-jour, extra hours are not counted and hence, not paid.

Most employees under the executive status earn RTTs as they systematically exceed the legal working time of 35 hours.

Unemployment

If you ever lose your job in France, you should know there is unemployment insurance (assurance chômage, or simply chômage) and that foreigners are eligible for it under almost the same conditions as French workers.

There is a lot to say about unemployment, so much that we decided to create a dedicated page for it.