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Unfair dismissal for racist or xenophobic remarks / Unfair dismissal for rejecting company culture / Being reachable on work trips may not count as work time

Published on : 29/04/2024 29 April Apr 04 2024
Newsletter / Recent Case Law
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Unfair dismissal for racist or xenophobic remarks

An employee was dismissed for serious misconduct for having sent an email from her professional email account to work colleagues containing racist and xenophobic comments.
On March 6th, 2024, the French Supreme Court ruled that the employer had not expressly indicated in the dismissal letter that this behaviour had had an impact on the employee’s relationship with colleagues or business partners nor that it had impacted the company’s reputation. The Court ruled that there was no evidence that these comments had been disclosed beyond the small private circle of work colleagues.
The fact that the employee had used her professional email account was not deemed pertinent as limited personal use was tolerated.

Unfair dismissal for rejecting company culture

An employee objected to his company organizing end-of-week gatherings that frequently led to employees being inebriated and indulging in certain “off-colour” behaviour.
On November, 9th, 2022, the French Supreme Court ruled that the employee’s objections and refusal to conform to the company culture was within his right to freedom of expression as provided in the French Labour Code and the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. On this basis, the Paris Court of Appeal then ruled on January 30th, 2024 that the employee had to be reinstated and the company also had to pay him nearly 500,000€ as backpay.

Being reachable on work trips may not count as work time

On March 13th, 2024, the French Supreme Court ruled that the fact that an employee was required to be reachable during a professional trip did not necessarily mean that the entire time spent by the employee on this trip could be qualified as working time and therefore giving rise to overtime.
However, the ruling may have been different if the employee had been called several times during such trip.
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