You hired your first employee in France with enthusiasm, and now the relationship is not working. The employee misses targets, feuds with clients, or simply does not fit the role you imagined when you signed the permanent contract. From London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, your instinct is to act fast: one short call, one month of pay, and everyone moves on. In France, that instinct is the most expensive mistake a foreign founder can make.
French dismissal law does not forgive haste. Every dismissal for personal reasons follows a mandatory procedure written into the Labour Code, with fixed waiting periods counted in working days, a compulsory preliminary meeting, and a dismissal letter that will later define the entire boundaries of any court case. Miss one step and the dismissal can be declared without real and serious cause, which opens the door to damages set by a statutory scale. The good news is that the whole procedure can be run properly while you live abroad, provided you control the calendar, the paperwork and the cost calculation from day one. This guide walks you through each stage in practical order: the summons and the meeting you must organise at a distance, the letter that locks in your case, the exact computation of notice and severance, and what happens if the employee takes you before the labour court.
I. Dismissing for Personal Reasons While You Direct the Company From Abroad: The Steps You Cannot Skip
A. The Preliminary Meeting at a Distance: Summons, Five Working Days and the Employee’s Right to Be Accompanied
Everything starts with a rule that surprises many foreign directors: in France, you may not dismiss an employee for personal reasons without first inviting that employee to a preliminary meeting. The employer who is considering dismissal must summon the employee to a preliminary meeting before any decision is taken, as Article L1232-2 of the Labour Code provides: “L’employeur qui envisage de licencier un salarié le convoque, avant toute décision, à un entretien préalable.” At this stage no decision may yet have been taken. Any document suggesting the outcome is already decided, an email announcing the dismissal before the meeting, or a replacement already hired and announced, can taint the whole procedure.
The summons itself must follow one of the two channels set by Article L1232-2 of the Labour Code: “La convocation est effectuée par lettre recommandée ou par lettre remise en main propre contre décharge.” A summons by registered letter or by letter handed over in person against a signed receipt. For a founder living abroad, hand delivery is rarely available, so the registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, the famous lettre recommandée avec avis de réception, becomes your standard tool. Send it from France through your local contact, your accountant’s office or your lawyer, and keep the postal receipt and the return card: they prove the starting point of every deadline. The letter must state its purpose, as Article L1232-2 of the Labour Code requires: “Cette lettre indique l’objet de la convocation.” The employee must therefore understand that dismissal is being considered, and the letter must also tell the employee about the right to be accompanied.
Then comes the waiting period, and here foreign employers most often miscalculate. As Article L1232-2 of the Labour Code states, “L’entretien préalable ne peut avoir lieu moins de cinq jours ouvrables après la présentation de la lettre recommandée ou la remise en main propre de la lettre de convocation.” The meeting cannot take place less than five working days after presentation of the registered letter. Working days, jours ouvrables, mean Monday to Saturday excluding public holidays, which differs from calendar days and from business days. If the letter is presented on a Monday, the five working days run Tuesday through Saturday, and the meeting can be held the following Monday at the earliest. Count carefully: holding the meeting one day early is a procedural irregularity that can cost you damages, and the employee’s lawyer will check the dates on the postal slips first.
At the meeting, the employee has a statutory right to support: “Lors de son audition, le salarié peut se faire assister par une personne de son choix appartenant au personnel de l’entreprise”, under Article L1232-4 of the Labour Code. During the hearing, the employee may be assisted by a person of their choice belonging to the company’s staff. Where the company has no elected staff representatives, which is the case in almost every young foreign-owned subsidiary, the employee may instead bring an outside adviser chosen from an official list drawn up by the administration, the conseiller du salarié. Your summons letter must mention this option, and you must accept the companion’s presence without discussion. Refusing the adviser entry to the meeting room is a textbook procedural fault.
Who sits on the employer’s side of the table when you are six thousand kilometres away? Someone must physically receive the employee, listen to their explanations and report back to you before any decision is taken. In a small subsidiary this is often a delegated manager, an external human-resources consultant or your French lawyer, acting under a clear written delegation. Give that person written instructions limited to conducting the meeting and reporting: they listen, they take notes, they ask the employee to confirm the facts, and they make no announcement about the outcome. The decision itself is taken afterwards, by you or by the legal representative of the French company, once you have read the report. Never announce the dismissal at the end of the meeting itself, and never put the decision in writing before the meeting has taken place. From the employee’s perspective the meeting must be a genuine exchange, not theatre, and judges examine this point when the file later reaches the labour court.
One special situation deserves a separate mention because it changes the economics entirely: serious misconduct, the faute grave. Where the employee has committed wilful misconduct that makes continued employment impossible, the law removes both the notice period and the statutory severance pay, as Articles L1234-5 and L1234-9 expressly reserve. But the label is controlled by the courts, not by your anger: poor performance, even documented and persistent, is almost never serious misconduct, and invoking it wrongly exposes you to a finding of dismissal without real and serious cause plus back pay for the notice period. Unless you are dealing with theft, violence, proven fraud or a comparable fact that must be acted upon within days, run the standard procedure described here and budget the full cost. A calm, well-documented ordinary dismissal almost always costs less than a failed attempt to plead serious misconduct.
B. The Dismissal Letter Sets the Boundaries of Any Future Trial: Reasons, Two Working Days and Later Clarification
After the meeting, the clock starts again. Article L1232-6 of the Labour Code provides: “Lorsque l’employeur décide de licencier un salarié, il lui notifie sa décision par lettre recommandée avec avis de réception.” When the employer decides to dismiss an employee, the decision is notified by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt. Two requirements follow. First, “Cette lettre comporte l’énoncé du ou des motifs invoqués par l’employeur.” The letter states the ground or grounds relied upon by the employer. Second, “Elle ne peut être expédiée moins de deux jours ouvrables après la date prévue de l’entretien préalable au licenciement auquel le salarié a été convoqué.” It cannot be sent less than two working days after the scheduled date of the preliminary meeting. Two working days, not five this time, but the same Monday-to-Saturday counting applies, and the letter must travel by registered post with return receipt. Keep the posting receipt: it proves compliance with the waiting period.
The standard the letter must meet is set by Article L1232-1 of the Labour Code: “Tout licenciement pour motif personnel est motivé dans les conditions définies par le présent chapitre. Il est justifié par une cause réelle et sérieuse.” Every dismissal for personal reasons must be reasoned as defined in the chapter, and it must rest on a real and serious cause. Real means the facts exist, are objective and can be verified; serious means they are grave enough to make dismissal necessary. Vague formulas such as loss of confidence, without precise facts, dates and examples, do not meet this standard. Neither does a first-time minor error. For each ground, state what happened, when, with what consequences for the company, and which evidence supports it: warnings issued, figures missed against defined targets, client complaints received, prior meetings held. Write the letter as the exhibit it will become, because that is exactly what it becomes.
This is not a figure of speech. The Court of Cassation held in a published social-chamber ruling that the letter defines the entire dispute. In Cass. soc., 23 October 2024, appeal no. 22-22.206, the Court stated: “Il résulte de ces textes que la lettre de licenciement fixe les limites du litige en ce qui concerne les griefs articulés à l’encontre du salarié et que le juge a l’obligation d’examiner l’ensemble des griefs invoqués dans la lettre de licenciement.” It follows from these texts that the dismissal letter fixes the limits of the dispute as regards the complaints made against the employee, and that the judge is obliged to examine all the complaints raised in the dismissal letter. In that case the court of appeal had examined several grievances but skipped one, disloyal behaviour consisting of spreading false rumours about the company, and the Court of Cassation quashed the ruling for that omission alone, adding that it did not matter that the employer had not developed the point in its pleadings. The lesson for a founder drafting from abroad is symmetrical and encouraging: everything you put in the letter with precision will be examined, and nothing outside the letter can save you. Put your whole case in, with dates and facts, and leave nothing for later invention.
What if the letter turns out to be imprecise? The statute provides a controlled repair mechanism. Article L1235-2 of the Labour Code allows the grounds stated in the letter to be clarified after notification, either on the employer’s own initiative or at the employee’s request, within time limits set by regulation. And Article L1235-2 of the Labour Code confirms the central rule: “La lettre de licenciement, précisée le cas échéant par l’employeur, fixe les limites du litige en ce qui concerne les motifs de licenciement.” The dismissal letter, as clarified where applicable, fixes the limits of the dispute as regards the grounds for dismissal. Clarification means spelling out facts already invoked, not adding new grievances discovered afterwards, so treat it as a safety net, never as a drafting strategy.
Where the letter remains too thin and the employee never asked for clarification, Article L1235-2 of the Labour Code sets a measured rather than fatal sanction: “A défaut pour le salarié d’avoir formé auprès de l’employeur une demande en application de l’alinéa premier, l’irrégularité que constitue une insuffisance de motivation de la lettre de licenciement ne prive pas, à elle seule, le licenciement de cause réelle et sérieuse et ouvre droit à une indemnité qui ne peut excéder un mois de salaire.” Failing a request for clarification by the employee, the irregularity of insufficient reasoning does not by itself deprive the dismissal of real and serious cause, and gives rise to compensation capped at one month’s salary. That cap is comforting only on paper: in practice a thin letter usually signals a thin file, and the court will then examine the substance and may find no real and serious cause at all, with the full scale of damages applying. Draft once, draft completely, and have the letter reviewed in France before posting. Standard government templates exist for the notification, but the grounds themselves must be written for your facts, never copied from a model. For founders structuring their French presence, our guide on choosing the right French vehicle from abroad explains who within your SAS or SARL has authority to sign each of these steps.
II. What a Dismissal Costs and What the Labour Court Can Order Against You
A. Notice, Statutory Severance and Final Paperwork: Computing What You Owe to the Euro
Once the dismissal is notified, three financial items follow, and each has its own legal regime. First, the notice period, the préavis, during which the contract continues and salary remains due. Its length is set by the employment contract, the applicable collective bargaining agreement, or statutory default rules, and it commonly runs from one to three months depending on the employee’s category and seniority. You may require the employee to work the notice or release the employee from working it; either way, the salary for the notice period is due. Article L1234-5 of the Labour Code states: “Lorsque le salarié n’exécute pas le préavis, il a droit, sauf s’il a commis une faute grave, à une indemnité compensatrice.” Where the employee does not work the notice, compensation in lieu is due, except in cases of serious misconduct. And the protection is complete: “L’inexécution du préavis, notamment en cas de dispense par l’employeur, n’entraîne aucune diminution des salaires et avantages que le salarié aurait perçus s’il avait accompli son travail jusqu’à l’expiration du préavis, indemnité de congés payés comprise.” Not working the notice, particularly where the employer releases the employee, entails no reduction in the pay and benefits the employee would have received, including accrued holiday pay. Releasing the employee from the notice period therefore never saves the salary cost; it only frees the calendar.
Second, the statutory severance pay, the indemnité de licenciement. Article L1234-9 of the Labour Code provides: “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.” In other words, the employee on a permanent contract, the contrat à durée indéterminée or CDI, dismissed with eight months of continuous service with the same employer, is entitled to severance except in cases of serious misconduct. Note the threshold: eight months, not one year. Many foreign founders assume no severance is due in the first year; that assumption is wrong and routinely produces underpayment disputes. The article adds: “Les modalités de calcul de cette indemnité sont fonction de la rémunération brute dont le salarié bénéficiait antérieurement à la rupture du contrat de travail.” The calculation depends on the gross pay received before termination, with the rate and method set by regulation.
The regulation is Article R1234-2 of the Labour Code, and its formula is mechanical: “L’indemnité de licenciement ne peut être inférieure aux montants suivants : 1° Un quart de mois de salaire par année d’ancienneté pour les années jusqu’à dix ans ; 2° Un tiers de mois de salaire par année d’ancienneté pour les années à partir de dix ans.” The severance cannot be less than one quarter of a month’s salary per year of service for the first ten years, plus one third of a month’s salary per year beyond ten years. Take a concrete example. An employee with three years of service and a gross reference salary of 3,500 euros receives at least 3 × 875 = 2,625 euros. An executive with twelve years of service and a 5,000-euro reference salary receives at least (10 × 1,250) + (2 × 1,666.67) = 15,833.33 euros. These are legal minimums: the employment contract, the collective agreement and company practice frequently provide higher contractual or conventional severance, and the employee receives whichever amount is most favourable. Before notifying, ask your payroll provider for a written computation covering the legal minimum, the conventional top-up if any, the notice compensation, accrued paid leave and any pro-rata bonus, so the solde de tout compte, the final settlement statement, is exact to the euro on the day the contract ends.
Third, the closing paperwork, which must be delivered at the end of the contract regardless of any dispute. The employee must receive the final payslip and settlement receipt, the certificat de travail summarising the positions held and dates of employment, and the France Travail certificate, the attestation France Travail issued for unemployment benefit purposes through the payroll reporting system, the déclaration sociale nominative or DSN, which your accountant files monthly with the social-security collection body, URSSAF. Late or missing documents expose you to separate damages claims before the labour court, on top of any dispute about the dismissal itself. Organise this chain before the notification letter goes out: confirm with your accountant that the DSN exit codes, the settlement computation and the three documents will be ready on the termination date, and designate who hands them over or posts them. A dismissal that is substantively justified but administratively chaotic still generates claims, and each claim means correspondence, time and fees managed across time zones.
B. If the Employee Sues Before the Conseil de Prud’hommes: The Scale and How Judges Test Your File
The French labour court is the conseil de prud’hommes, a specialised employment tribunal with local jurisdiction, sitting in Paris for employees working in the capital. Proceedings are conducted in French, begin with a conciliation phase aimed at settlement, and continue to judgment if conciliation fails. As a foreign-based employer you do not need to fly in for every hearing: you are represented by French counsel under a written authority, and your personal attendance is the exception, typically useful only where your testimony on the facts is decisive. The employee, for their part, has twelve months from notification of the termination to challenge the dismissal, since Article L1471-1 of the Labour Code provides: “Toute action portant sur la rupture du contrat de travail se prescrit par douze mois à compter de la notification de la rupture.” Any action concerning termination of the employment contract is time-barred twelve months after notification of the termination. Keep every proof of posting and delivery for at least that long, and diarize the anniversary: once the twelve months expire without a claim, the dismissal itself can no longer be challenged.
If the court finds the dismissal without real and serious cause, the financial consequence is framed by the statutory scale, the barème Macron. Article L1235-3 of the Labour Code provides: “Si le licenciement d’un salarié survient pour une cause qui n’est pas réelle et sérieuse, le juge peut proposer la réintégration du salarié dans l’entreprise, avec maintien de ses avantages acquis.” Where the dismissal is without real and serious cause, the judge may propose reinstatement with preservation of acquired benefits. In practice reinstatement is almost always refused by one side or both, and the article continues: “Si l’une ou l’autre des parties refuse cette réintégration, le juge octroie au salarié une indemnité à la charge de l’employeur, dont le montant est compris entre les montants minimaux et maximaux fixés dans le tableau ci-dessous.” If either party refuses reinstatement, the judge awards compensation within the minimum and maximum amounts of the statutory table. The table runs by years of complete service: for example, at two years of service the range is three to three-and-a-half months’ gross salary, at five years six to seven months, at ten years three to ten months at minimum depending on company size, rising to a ceiling of twenty months for thirty years of service. Small companies with fewer than eleven employees benefit from lower minimums in the early years, which often covers young foreign-owned subsidiaries, but the ceiling applies to everyone.
Foreign founders sometimes hear that this scale can be set aside by invoking international treaties. That debate has been settled at the highest level. In a landmark plenary ruling, Cass. soc., plenary formation, 11 May 2022, appeal no. 21-14.490, the Court of Cassation held: “Les dispositions des articles L. 1235-3, L. 1235-3-1 et L. 1235-4 du code du travail sont ainsi de nature à permettre le versement d’une indemnité adéquate ou une réparation considérée comme appropriée au sens de l’article 10 de la Convention n° 158 de l’OIT.” The provisions are capable of providing adequate compensation or appropriate relief within the meaning of Article 10 of ILO Convention No. 158. And the operative conclusion follows: “Il en résulte que les dispositions de l’article L. 1235-3 du code du travail sont compatibles avec les stipulations de l’article 10 de la Convention précitée.” Article L1235-3 is compatible with Article 10 of that Convention. Budget your risk on the scale as written: courts apply it, the Court of Cassation upholds it, and pleading its unlawfulness is no longer a serious strategy. Note that distinct heads of loss, harassment, discrimination or specific procedural breaches, can generate additional awards outside the scale, which is one more reason to keep the procedure spotless from summons to final documents.
How do judges concretely test your file? They start with the letter, which as seen fixes the limits of the dispute, then verify each grievance against the evidence you produce: prior written warnings, quantified targets communicated in advance, appraisal reports signed by both sides, dated client complaints, figures showing the impact on the business. General dissatisfaction, undocumented warnings and targets invented after the fact do not survive this review. They then check the procedure date by date: five working days before the meeting, two working days before posting, mention of the right to be accompanied, registered letters with receipts. A procedural breach alone, without affecting the substance, gives rise to limited compensation, but combined with weak grounds it colours the whole case. Finally, they verify the payments: notice, severance at least at the legal minimum, leave, documents delivered. The employer who arrives with a complete dated file, exact payments and clean paperwork wins far more often than the employer who arrives with a strong opinion about the employee. For a founder managing from abroad, that bundle of dates, receipts, computations and evidence is the real product of the dismissal process: build it as you go, store every slip, and have each step validated in France before moving to the next.
Conclusion
Dismissing an employee in France while you live abroad is entirely possible, but it rewards method and punishes improvisation. Summon by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt, wait five working days, hold a genuine preliminary meeting through a properly delegated representative, then wait two working days before posting a dismissal letter that states precise, dated, provable facts amounting to a real and serious cause. Compute the notice compensation, the statutory severance of one quarter month per year up to ten years and one third beyond, with eight months of service as the entry threshold, and deliver the settlement, the work certificate and the France Travail attestation on time through your payroll chain. If the case reaches the conseil de prud’hommes, your letter will fix the limits of the dispute, the Macron scale will frame the damages, and the twelve-month limitation period will close the file if no claim is filed. Run the calendar, write the facts, pay to the euro, and keep every receipt: that discipline is what transforms a transatlantic dismissal from a legal gamble into a managed business decision.