Your only employee in France has been off sick for months, and the letter that just arrived from Paris changes everything. The occupational doctor, called the médecin du travail, has declared your employee unfit to return to the previous job, a finding French law calls inaptitude. You run the company from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, the French payroll has one name on it, and there is no human resources department to handle what comes next. The instinct of most foreign owners is to end the contract quickly and pay whatever seems fair. That instinct is dangerous twice over. First, French law forbids dismissing an unfit employee before you have searched for another suitable job for that person inside the company, and that search must be documented in writing even when the company has almost nothing to offer. Second, a one-month clock starts running on the day of the medical examination: if the employee is neither reclassified nor dismissed within that month, you must resume paying the full salary of the suspended contract, with no work in return. Where the unfitness comes from a work accident or an occupational disease, the exit price doubles by statute, and any procedural shortcut can push the dispute into the nullity scale, where the minimum award is six months of salary. This guide explains the exact sequence a foreign employer must follow from abroad: reading the doctor’s notice and its fifteen-day challenge window, running a reclassification search that survives before the labour court, called the conseil de prud’hommes, dismissing within the one-month deadline, and pricing the exit correctly according to the origin of the unfitness. It assumes the company formation steps are behind you; if they are not, start with our guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, which covers the bank account, the Kbis extract and the first hire, then return here when the medical notice lands.
I. Your French Employee Is Declared Unfit: the Reclassification Search You Must Run From Abroad
A. What does the occupational doctor’s unfitness notice trigger, and how do you use or challenge it within fifteen days?
Inaptitude is never declared by the employer. It is declared by the occupational doctor of the workplace health service, called the service de prévention et de santé au travail, after a return-to-work medical examination. The notice states whether the employee can return to the previous job, possibly with adjustments such as part-time hours or adapted duties, or cannot return to it at all. From the employer’s side, that piece of paper is the starting gun for every deadline in this guide, so the first task is to read it literally, word by word, and to file it with proof of the date you received it. Three questions matter: does the notice concern the previous job only or every job in the company, does it contain written conclusions and indications on what the employee can still do, and does it carry the express exemption wording that releases you from the reclassification search altogether. Where the notice is silent or ambiguous on that last point, you must search. Where it contains the express statement that any continued employment would seriously harm the employee’s health, or that the state of health blocks any reclassification, the statute releases you, and the Cour de cassation applies that release strictly but fairly.
The exemption wording for a non-occupational illness or accident sits in Article L. 1226-2-1 of the Labour Code, and the mirror provision for a work accident or occupational disease sits in Article L. 1226-12: the employer may only break the contract on three grounds, impossibility of offering a job, refusal by the employee, or the express medical statement. Article L. 1226-2-1 of the Labour Code on Légifrance is the text to check first when the origin is not occupational, and Article L. 1226-12 of the Labour Code is its counterpart when the origin is occupational. On 12 February 2025 the Social Chamber of the Cour de cassation confirmed how those provisions work in practice, in a case where the doctor had written that the state of health did not allow any reclassification proposal within the company, subsidiaries and holding included, and made the employee unfit for every position. The Court restated the rule first: “l’employeur ne peut rompre le contrat de travail que s’il justifie soit de son impossibilité de proposer un emploi dans les conditions prévues à l’article L. 1226-2, soit du refus par le salarié de l’emploi proposé dans ces conditions, soit de la mention expresse dans l’avis du médecin du travail que tout maintien du salarié dans un emploi serait gravement préjudiciable à sa santé ou que l’état de santé du salarié fait obstacle à tout reclassement dans un emploi.” It then held that the appeal court had correctly released the employer from any search, because “la formule utilisée par le médecin du travail étant équivalente à la mention de l’article L. 1226-2-1 du code du travail.” See Cour de cassation, Social Chamber, 12 February 2025, No. 23-22.612. The practical lesson for a foreign owner is sharp: an equivalent formula protects you, a vague notice does not, and when the notice is vague you must run the full search described in the next section rather than gambling on an exemption a judge will not recognise.
Either party can challenge the doctor’s medical findings, but the window is brutally short. Article R. 4624-45 of the Labour Code provides that “le conseil de prud’hommes statuant selon la procédure accélérée au fond est saisi dans un délai de quinze jours à compter de leur notification.” See Article R. 4624-45 of the Labour Code. The labour court ruling under a fast-track procedure on the merits is therefore available within fifteen days of notification of the notice, and the notice itself must mention the remedies and the deadline. For a foreign employer, this means the Paris counsel must see the notice within days, not weeks: contesting an exemption formula you dislike, or an aptitude-with-restrictions finding that forces you to reorganise a one-person office, is possible, but only immediately. After fifteen days the notice stands, and the reclassification or dismissal sequence must follow it as written.
B. How do you prove a loyal and serious reclassification search when your French presence is one small office?
Once the exemption does not apply, the employer must offer the unfit employee another job suited to the remaining capacities, inside the company or, where applicable, inside the group companies located on French national territory whose organisation, activities or operating site allow staff transfers between them. That is the core of Article L. 1226-2 of the Labour Code for non-occupational cases, and Article L. 1226-2 of the Labour Code defines the group perimeter the same way its occupational twin does. Read that perimeter carefully as a foreign group: only entities on French territory count, so a subsidiary in London or Dubai is outside the search, but every French entity of the group whose organisation allows staff movement is inside it, even if you never thought of those entities as sharing staff. A Paris SAS whose sole shareholder is a foreign holding with no other French company has a search perimeter of one office, and that is lawful, but the search file must show it. List the French entities examined, the positions reviewed, and why each position was incompatible with the doctor’s written indications, then keep that file with the dismissal papers for years.
Where the unfitness follows a work accident or an occupational disease, the procedure gains one more mandatory step: the proposal must take into account the written conclusions of the doctor after obtaining the opinion of the employee representative body, called the comité social et économique. See Article L. 1226-10 of the Labour Code. In a company with fewer than eleven employees there is no such committee, and the absence is simply recorded, but in a company that has one, skipping its opinion poisons the whole dismissal. The job offered must be as comparable as possible to the previous job, if necessary through transfers, adjustments, adaptations or transformations of existing positions or working-time arrangements, in the statute’s own catalogue of efforts. A foreign employer who faxes a single demotion to a part-time cleaning role while comparable posts sit vacant has not searched; an employer who documents two or three genuinely comparable adjusted offers, each sent in writing with a precise description, salary, hours and location, and each expressly referencing the doctor’s indications, has built the file the tribunal expects.
Where no suitable job exists, the employer must tell the employee in writing why reclassification is impossible before any dismissal. See Article L. 1226-2-1 of the Labour Code, which states that “il lui fait connaître par écrit les motifs qui s’opposent à son reclassement” for ordinary cases, and the occupational twin uses identical language. That impossibility letter is not a formality: it is the exhibit judges read first, and it must name the positions examined, the doctor’s restrictions applied to each, and the group perimeter checked. Send it by a traceable means, keep the proof of sending and receipt, and only then move to dismissal within the one-month period examined in Part II. From abroad, the practical organisation is a dated checklist shared with French counsel: notice received and filed, fifteen-day challenge window assessed, group perimeter mapped, representative body consulted where required, written offers sent with deadlines for reply, refusals or silences recorded, impossibility letter sent. The tribunal never excuses distance, but it rewards files, and a complete file prepared from another continent beats an oral explanation given in Paris.
The payoff for that discipline was confirmed by the Cour de cassation on 4 September 2024 in a work-accident case where the employer had offered nine positions and the appeal court still found the dismissal unjustified for lack of proof about other supposedly available posts in Normandy. The Social Chamber quashed that reasoning and restated the burden of proof: “lorsque l’employeur a proposé un emploi conforme aux dispositions précitées, l’obligation de recherche de reclassement est réputée satisfaite et il appartient au salarié de démontrer que cette proposition n’a pas été faite loyalement.” See Cour de cassation, Social Chamber, 4 September 2024, No. 22-24.005. In plain terms, one compliant written offer flips the burden: the search is deemed satisfied, and the employee must then prove disloyalty. For the foreign owner of a small French structure, that holding is the whole strategy. You do not need ten offers. You need one offer that matches the statutory template, takes the doctor’s indications into account, and is sent in writing, or a written impossibility statement built the same way. Everything else in the dispute flows from that single document.
II. Dismissing for Unfitness and Pricing the Exit: the One-Month Salary Clock, Double Severance and the Tribunal
A. How long do you have to act, and what does the exit cost when the unfitness is work-related or not?
The one-month rule is the provision foreign employers violate most often, because nothing in it looks like a dismissal deadline at first glance. Article L. 1226-4 of the Labour Code provides that “Lorsque, à l’issue d’un délai d’un mois à compter de la date de l’examen médical de reprise du travail, le salarié déclaré inapte n’est pas reclassé dans l’entreprise ou s’il n’est pas licencié, l’employeur lui verse, dès l’expiration de ce délai, le salaire correspondant à l’emploi que celui-ci occupait avant la suspension de son contrat de travail.” See Article L. 1226-4 of the Labour Code. The month runs from the return-to-work medical examination, not from the day you open the letter, and it applies even where the doctor declared the employee unfit for every job in the company. After that month without reclassification or dismissal, the full salary resumes with no work performed, month after month, until you act. The dismissal itself follows the ordinary personal-dismissal procedure of summons, preliminary meeting and reasoned notification, but the notice period is not worked: the statute states that the notice is not performed while the contract ends on the notification date, with the notice still counted for seniority and certain rights. Organise the calendar backwards from the examination date, instruct counsel the same week the notice arrives, and treat day twenty-five without a reclassification solution as the point of no return for notifying the dismissal.
The base exit price for a non-occupational unfitness is the ordinary statutory severance. Article L. 1234-9 of the Labour Code grants it in these terms: “Le salarié titulaire d’un contrat de travail à durée indéterminée, licencié alors qu’il compte 8 mois d’ancienneté ininterrompus au service du même employeur, a droit, sauf en cas de faute grave, à une indemnité de licenciement.” See Article L. 1234-9 of the Labour Code. The implementing regulation sets the floor at one quarter of a month of salary per year of seniority for the first ten years, then one third per year beyond ten years: “Un quart de mois de salaire par année d’ancienneté pour les années jusqu’à dix ans” and “Un tiers de mois de salaire par année d’ancienneté pour les années à partir de dix ans.” See Article R. 1234-2 of the Labour Code. The applicable collective bargaining agreement, called the convention collective, frequently improves on that floor, and the foreign employer must apply whichever conventional scale covers the Paris office, because the tribunal will. Paid leave accrued and untaken, the pro-rata thirteenth month where the contract provides one, and the compensatory notice indemnity complete the payslip, and each line must appear on the final settlement statement, called the solde de tout compte.
Where the unfitness comes from a work accident or an occupational disease, the statute doubles the severance and adds a notice indemnity. Article L. 1226-14 of the Labour Code grants a special dismissal indemnity “égale au double de l’indemnité prévue par l’article L. 1234-9”, plus a compensatory indemnity equal to the notice indemnity, except against an employer who proves the employee’s refusal of the offered reclassification was abusive. See Article L. 1226-14 of the Labour Code. The classification of the origin is therefore a money question before it is a medical question: an accident declared and recognised as occupational by the health insurance fund, called the caisse primaire d’assurance maladie, moves the file into the double-indemnity track, while a contested or undeclared origin keeps it in the ordinary track pending recognition. A foreign owner who learns that the sick leave followed a fall in the Paris office or a burnout recognised as occupational must reprice the exit immediately and verify the applicable convention collective, because several Paris-sector agreements add their own multipliers on top of the statutory double. Underpaying the exit by treating an occupational unfitness as an ordinary one is the fastest route to the nullity scale examined next.
The closing paperwork has its own traps. At the end of the contract the employer must deliver the work certificate, and Article L. 1234-19 of the Labour Code states that “A l’expiration du contrat de travail, l’employeur délivre au salarié un certificat dont le contenu est déterminé par voie réglementaire.” See Article L. 1234-19 of the Labour Code. Alongside it go the final settlement receipt and the employer certificate for the unemployment insurance body, called France Travail, which conditions the employee’s benefit rights and therefore generates disputes when it is late or wrong. The settlement receipt deserves special attention from abroad: Article L. 1234-20 of the Labour Code provides that “Le reçu pour solde de tout compte peut être dénoncé dans les six mois qui suivent sa signature, délai au-delà duquel il devient libératoire pour l’employeur pour les sommes qui y sont mentionnées.” See Article L. 1234-20 of the Labour Code. Itemise every sum on the receipt down to the euro, have counsel reconcile it with the payslips, and archive the signed copy with proof of delivery, because after six months that receipt closes the listed sums for good, while a lump-sum receipt with no breakdown closes nothing.
B. The employee challenges the dismissal at the labour court: nullity scale, twelve-month deadline and settling from abroad
A dismissal for unfitness that skips the reclassification search, or one pronounced in breach of the occupational reclassification provisions, exposes the employer to a sanction far above the ordinary scale. Article L. 1226-15 of the Labour Code sends the judge to the nullity regime: “le juge octroie une indemnité au salarié” See Article L. 1226-15 of the Labour Code. Under that regime, Article L. 1235-3-1 of the Labour Code provides that “le juge lui octroie une indemnité, à la charge de l’employeur, qui ne peut être inférieure aux salaires des six derniers mois.” See Article L. 1235-3-1 of the Labour Code. Six months of salary as a floor, with no ceiling, is the price of a missing search file. By contrast, an ordinary unjustified dismissal stays inside the Macron scale of Article L. 1235-3, whose minimum and maximum vary with seniority. See Article L. 1235-3 of the Labour Code. The foreign employer should therefore read every dispute through the same lens: is the attack aimed at the scale, where the exposure is capped and insurable, or at nullity, where a single missing letter removes the cap. The reclassification file built in Part I is what keeps the dispute in the capped track.
The employee’s clock to sue is twelve months from notification of the break. Article L. 1471-1 of the Labour Code states that “Toute action portant sur la rupture du contrat de travail se prescrit par douze mois à compter de la notification de la rupture.” See Article L. 1471-1 of the Labour Code. Keep the complete file, offers, refusals, medical notices, consultation opinions and proof of each sending, for at least that year, and diary the anniversary of the notification as the day the risk expires. For Paris and Île-de-France employers, the competent court is normally the Paris labour court, called the conseil de prud’hommes de Paris, ruling in French with strict rules on exhibits, called pièces, and written submissions, called conclusions. The foreign owner does not need to fly in: a French employment lawyer, called avocat, represents the company from the conciliation hearing through judgment, and conciliation itself is often the moment a well-documented file settles at a fraction of the nullity exposure. A negotiated settlement agreement, called transaction, signed with mutual concessions after the dispute has arisen, can close the file at any stage, but it must be drafted by counsel, because a transaction that merely repeats the statutory minimum without a genuine employer concession above it will not survive a challenge. Budget from the start for counsel fees, the scale exposure, and the management time of whoever must explain the file, then compare that total honestly with a settlement while the conciliation window is open.
Conclusion
An unfitness dismissal run from abroad succeeds or fails on five disciplines that a foreign employer can impose from day one. Read the doctor’s notice literally on arrival and diary the fifteen-day challenge window, because after it the notice governs everything. Map the French group perimeter and run a written, loyal and serious reclassification search, or secure the express exemption wording, because one compliant offer flips the burden of proof onto the employee. Consult the employee representative body where the origin is occupational, because skipping that opinion poisons an otherwise clean file. Act inside the one-month examination clock, because beyond it the salary resumes with no work in return. Price the exit according to the true origin of the unfitness, deliver the certificate, the itemised settlement receipt and the France Travail certificate exactly, and keep the complete file past the twelve-month challenge period. None of this requires a presence in France; all of it requires calendars, paperwork and counsel. The companies that lose these cases before the prud’hommes are rarely those with the smallest offices. They are those with the thinnest files.