You hired your first employee in France while living abroad, registered the company, ran payroll through a French provider, and learned to live with the DSN (the monthly online payroll return), the payslip and the trial period. Now the working relationship is not working, but a dismissal feels dangerous: the procedure is rigid, the labour court (conseil de prud’hommes) reviews every step, and compensation for dismissal without real and serious cause follows a statutory scale that can punish a foreign employer who improvised. There is a third way that French founders use every day, and it is open to you even from another country: the negotiated termination known as the rupture conventionnelle, the mutual separation agreement of articles L.1237-11 to L.1237-16 of the French Labour Code (Code du travail). Done properly, it ends a permanent contract (CDI, contrat à durée indéterminée) by genuine mutual consent, with an indemnity that cannot fall below the statutory dismissal floor, an approval (homologation) by the labour administration filed online through the TéléRC portal, and unemployment rights (the ARE return-to-work allowance paid by France Travail, the French unemployment agency) for the departing employee. Done badly, it is refused approval, recharacterised, or annulled within twelve months by the labour court. This guide explains the whole path from abroad: who can sign and how the interview and signature are organised when the employer is not in France, how the fifteen-day withdrawal period and the fifteen-working-day approval procedure run in practice, how the severance floor is calculated to the euro, what the exit costs in payroll and tax treatment, and how the Cour de cassation (France’s supreme court for labour matters) polices consent defects and last-minute misconduct. Every decisive rule below is quoted from the statute or the judgment that states it, with an official link.

I. How to negotiate and homologate a rupture conventionnelle when you live abroad

The rupture conventionnelle is often described as a divorce by mutual consent for employment contracts, and the comparison is useful only if you take the consent part seriously. The administration that approves the agreement and the labour court that reviews it both check one thing above all: that the employee agreed freely. A foreign founder who manages the process by email from another continent must therefore build a file that proves calm, informed, unpressured consent at every stage.

A. The interview, the signature and the fifteen-day withdrawal period arranged from another country

The regime is open to any employee on a permanent contract (CDI), whatever the size of the company, and it is closed to fixed-term contracts. It is also excluded where the departure sits inside a collective operation: the statute lists negotiations on jobs and skills, employment protection plans (PSE, plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi) and collective mutual-separation agreements (see article L.1237-16 of the Labour Code). For an ordinary individual departure of your first or second hire, none of these exclusions applies, and the individual procedure of articles L.1237-11 to L.1237-15 governs. The founding principle is stated in one sentence that you should keep in front of you throughout the negotiation: article L.1237-11 of the Labour Code provides that “La rupture conventionnelle, exclusive du licenciement ou de la démission, ne peut être imposée par l’une ou l’autre des parties.” A rupture conventionnelle is exclusive of dismissal and resignation, and neither party may impose it on the other. In practice this means you may propose it, the employee may propose it, but any trace of pressure, threat of dismissal if refused, or promise made to extract a signature becomes the future annulment file. If you are used to faster common-law settlements, slow down: the French procedure protects consent with mandatory steps and waiting periods that cannot be waived.

The procedure starts with one or more interviews. The employee has a statutory right to be assisted, and the text is precise: article L.1237-12 of the Labour Code states that “le salarié peut se faire assister : 1° Soit par une personne de son choix appartenant au personnel de l’entreprise, qu’il s’agisse d’un salarié titulaire d’un mandat syndical ou d’un salarié membre d’une institution représentative du personnel ou tout autre salarié ; 2° Soit, en l’absence d’institution représentative du personnel dans l’entreprise, par un conseiller du salarié choisi sur une liste dressée par l’autorité administrative.” In a very small company with no staff representative body, that means an outside staff counsellor (conseiller du salarié) chosen from the official list drawn up by the administration. The employer may be assisted only if the employee uses assistance himself, and each side must warn the other in advance. From abroad, organise this cleanly: fix the interview date in writing with reasonable notice, remind the employee in the invitation of the assistance right, and if you cannot fly in, mandate in writing a person in France to conduct the interview for the company, keeping a dated record of what was discussed. A short written invitation that mentions the assistance right costs nothing and answers in advance the most frequent challenge, namely that the employee signed without understanding the process.

The interview produces the written separation agreement (convention de rupture), signed by both parties. It must set the separation terms, and two of them are imposed by statute rather than left to bargaining. Article L.1237-13 of the Labour Code states that “La convention de rupture définit les conditions de celle-ci”, and that the agreement sets an end date with the rule that “Elle fixe la date de rupture du contrat de travail, qui ne peut intervenir avant le lendemain du jour de l’homologation.” The indemnity itself cannot fall below the statutory dismissal indemnity of article L.1234-9, examined in detail in Part II. The agreement therefore fixes an indemnity at or above the statutory floor, examined in detail in Part II, and an end date that cannot fall before the day after approval. Keep one fully signed original for the company, give one to the employee, and keep a third copy for the approval request. If you sign while travelling, make sure the date written on the agreement is the real signature date of each party, because every later deadline runs from it.

From the signature date, each party has a withdrawal right (droit de rétractation) that is absolute and needs no reason: the same article L.1237-13 provides that “chacune d’entre elles dispose d’un délai de quinze jours calendaires pour exercer son droit de rétractation. Ce droit est exercé sous la forme d’une lettre adressée par tout moyen attestant de sa date de réception par l’autre partie.” Fifteen calendar days, starting the day after signature, exercised by a letter sent by any means that proves its date of receipt by the other party. From abroad, use registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt or hand delivery against receipt through your representative, and diary the expiry date with the weekend rule in mind: when the last day falls on a Saturday, Sunday, public holiday or non-working day, it rolls to the next working day. The official service-public English page confirms the mechanics and offers a simulator for the withdrawal and approval periods (see Conventional termination of a private sector employee, service-public.fr). Nothing may be filed with the administration before this period expires, and no end date may fall inside it, as explained next.

B. The TéléRC filing, the fifteen-working-day review and the earliest possible end date

Once the withdrawal period has expired without either side withdrawing, the most diligent party sends the approval request (demande d’homologation) to the labour administration with a copy of the agreement. The request is filed online through the TéléRC portal, the administration’s dedicated entry point (see Entering an individual conventional break approval online, TéléRC, service-public.fr), and only exceptionally on the paper form Cerfa No. 14598 sent by registered letter or hand delivery when online filing was impossible. The competent office is the local arm of the Ministry of Labour (the DREETS network acting through its département-level DDETSPP units) for the place where the employee works, so a Paris-based hire is handled by the Paris office even if you manage the company from London, New York or Dubai. Either party may file, which matters from abroad: if your representative on the ground is slow, the employee can file first, and the clock runs from receipt either way. File from the day after the withdrawal period ends, never before, and enter the withdrawal expiry date in the agreement exactly as the simulator computes it.

The administration then has fifteen working days (jours ouvrables) from the day after receipt to check compliance with the statutory conditions and the freedom of consent of the parties. The rule and its consequence are stated in article L.1237-14 of the Labour Code: “L’autorité administrative dispose d’un délai d’instruction de quinze jours ouvrables, à compter de la réception de la demande, pour s’assurer du respect des conditions prévues à la présente section et de la liberté de consentement des parties. A défaut de notification dans ce délai, l’homologation est réputée acquise et l’autorité administrative est dessaisie.” Silence for fifteen working days means deemed approval, and the authority loses the file. Conversely, a refusal must be reasoned, for example non-compliance with a procedural step or an indemnity below the legal minimum (see the service-public page cited above). A refusal is not the end of the story: the parties may correct the defect and sign a new agreement that restarts the whole sequence, withdrawal period included, or challenge the refusal, but every dispute about the agreement, the approval or the refusal goes to one court only, as the same article states: “Tout litige concernant la convention, l’homologation ou le refus d’homologation relève de la compétence du conseil des prud’hommes, à l’exclusion de tout autre recours contentieux ou administratif.” Plan your calendar backwards from the desired departure: fifteen calendar days of withdrawal, then fifteen working days of review, then departure at the earliest the day after approval, because article L.1237-14 adds that “La validité de la convention est subordonnée à son homologation.” No approval, no valid agreement, and an end date written before approval day poisons the file. A frequent foreign-founder mistake is promising the employee a fixed last day in the agreement to match a new job or a flight home; write the date only after computing both periods, and if the approval slips, amend by a new agreement rather than backdating.

Two special situations deserve attention before you sign. First, a protected employee (a pregnant employee, an employee holding a staff-representative mandate, and the other categories listed by statute) does not go through approval at all: article L.1237-15 of the Labour Code provides that “la rupture conventionnelle est soumise à l’autorisation de l’inspecteur du travail”, the labour inspector’s authorisation, and the TéléRC portal cannot be used for this case. If your first hire has become a staff delegate or has announced a pregnancy, stop and take advice on the authorisation track, because the delays and the review are different. Second, when the contract ends, the employer must hand over the standard departure documents: the France Travail certificate (attestation France Travail) for unemployment rights, the final pay balance receipt (reçu pour solde de tout compte) and the employment certificate (certificat de travail), and your payroll provider closes the employment record in the DSN monthly return. These documents are due whatever the mode of departure, and missing certificates generate their own disputes, so instruct your provider in the same week as the approval. For the broader hiring context of a young French subsidiary, from the hiring declaration (DPAE) to the trial period and the payslip, the companion guide to hiring your first employee in France while living abroad covers the steps that precede any departure.

II. What the negotiated exit costs and how it can still be challenged

The price of a rupture conventionnelle has two components: the indemnity written in the agreement, which must clear a statutory floor, and the payroll and tax treatment of that indemnity, which differs from ordinary salary. The legal risk has one dominant form: a challenge before the labour court within twelve months of approval. Both are manageable if they are priced and documented before signature rather than repaired afterwards.

A. The severance floor, the payslip treatment and the employee’s unemployment rights

The floor is borrowed from dismissal law. The agreement’s specific indemnity cannot fall below the statutory dismissal indemnity of article L.1234-9 of the Labour Code, which grants the right to “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.” Eight months of uninterrupted service with the same employer opens the right, except for serious misconduct, and the calculation rate is set by regulation. The regulation counts service year by year including months beyond full years, with incomplete years computed proportionally to full months (see article R.1234-1 of the Labour Code), and sets the minimum amounts as follows, per article R.1234-2 of the Labour Code: “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.” One quarter of a month’s pay per year of service for the first ten years, one third per year beyond ten, applied to the reference salary defined by regulation on the basis of gross pay before departure. Two worked examples make the floor concrete. An employee with three years of service and a reference gross salary of 3,000 euros per month opens a floor of one quarter times 3,000 times three, or 2,250 euros. An employee with twelve years of service and a reference gross salary of 4,000 euros opens a floor of one quarter times 4,000 times ten plus one third times 4,000 times two, or 10,000 plus 2,666.67, totalling 12,666.67 euros. A collective agreement or the contract may set a higher formula, and the agreement may always pay more than the floor; it may never pay less. Where seniority is below eight months, no statutory minimum applies, but the administration still reviews the amount, and an agreement that pays a token euro invites a reasoned refusal, so negotiate a serious figure even when the floor is zero.

Three practical consequences follow for the payslip. First, unlike a dismissal, no notice period (préavis) is owed: the official English guidance states plainly that no notice period applies in this type of separation, and the parties simply agree a departure date that respects the withdrawal and review periods (see service-public.fr, notice section). Any unused paid leave is compensated financially, and the file closes without garden leave. Second, the specific indemnity has its own social-security and tax regime, distinct from salary: social contributions are assessed on activity income under article L.242-1 of the Social Security Code, and the termination indemnity benefits from exemption ceilings that depend on the amounts and the circumstances of the file. Because those ceilings move with the figures in your agreement, have your payroll provider price the employer cost and the net for the employee before you sign, rather than discovering the charges on the final payslip. Third, the employee keeps the decisive advantage that makes candidates accept a negotiated exit: unlike a resignation, the rupture conventionnelle opens unemployment rights. The service-public page confirms that after a conventional termination the employee may receive benefits from France Travail and that the employee who meets the conditions, including a minimum work period, may draw the return-to-work allowance (ARE) (see service-public.fr, France Travail section). This is why employees often prefer the negotiated route to resigning and why offering it can unlock a stalemate faster than any dismissal timetable. When the choice of vehicle itself is still open, for example engaging through a branch rather than a subsidiary, the comparison of SAS, SARL, branch and subsidiary for a foreign company in France helps you weigh who will formally be the employer on the agreement.

B. The twelve-month challenge before the labour court and the mistakes that reopen the file

Approval does not make the agreement untouchable. Any dispute over the agreement, the approval or a refusal goes to the labour court, and the action must be brought within twelve months of approval, on penalty of inadmissibility: article L.1237-14 of the Labour Code states that “Le recours juridictionnel doit être formé, à peine d’irrecevabilité, avant l’expiration d’un délai de douze mois à compter de la date d’homologation de la convention.” Twelve months from the approval date, not from the departure date and not from the signature date. Diary this period on the employer’s side too, because a late claim is inadmissible and an early settlement discussion reads differently once the deadline has passed. The published French commentary on challenges confirms the pattern: validity is attacked for fraud or a defect of consent, typically threats, and the labour court action must be filed within the twelve months running from approval (see the published French HR commentary on challenges (Editions Tissot, rupture conventionnelle challenge period)). Your best defence is therefore built before signature: a calm timetable, a written invitation recalling the assistance right, at least one real interview, a coherent indemnity, and no written trace of pressure in emails or messages. Judges read messages; a single text suggesting the employee will be dismissed anyway if he refuses can suffice to characterise a defect of consent.

The Cour de cassation draws the lines precisely, and two recent rulings frame what the foreign employer must understand. First, a difficult context does not by itself void the agreement. On 23 January 2019 the Social Chamber quashed an appeal ruling that had annulled a separation agreement purely because it was signed against a background of moral harassment, without any proven defect of consent: the Court held that “en l’absence de vice du consentement, l’existence de faits de harcèlement moral n’affecte pas en elle-même la validité de la convention de rupture intervenue en application de l’article L. 1237-11 du code du travail” (see Cass. soc., 23 January 2019, No. 17-21.550). Without a defect of consent, the existence of harassment facts does not in itself affect the validity of the agreement. Read carefully, this ruling cuts both ways. It protects an agreement signed in a tense workplace where the employee genuinely wanted to leave, but it confirms that wherever pressure, threats, deception or violence against consent is proven, annulment follows, and the recharacterisation is severe: an annulled rupture conventionnelle is treated as a dismissal without real and serious cause, opening the statutory compensation scale. That scale, the so-called Macron scale, is set by article L.1235-3 of the Labour Code, whose tables graduate minimum and maximum months of gross salary by seniority, with lower minimums for companies that usually employ fewer than eleven staff. Compare the certain, negotiated indemnity of your agreement with the lottery of that scale plus reimbursement and procedure damages, and the value of a clean consent file becomes obvious.

Second, signing the agreement does not freeze the contract until departure day. On 25 June 2025 the Social Chamber settled the fate of an agreement signed in January with effect at the end of June, followed in April by a dismissal for serious misconduct over facts revealed after the withdrawal period: the appeal court had declared the agreement void and refused the separation indemnity, and the Cour de cassation quashed that analysis, holding that “la créance d’indemnité de rupture conventionnelle, si elle n’est exigible qu’à la date fixée par la rupture, naît dès l’homologation de la convention, le licenciement n’affectant pas la validité de la rupture conventionnelle, mais ayant seulement pour effet, s’il est justifié, de mettre un terme au contrat de travail avant la date d’effet prévue par les parties dans la convention” (see Cass. soc., 25 June 2025, No. 24-12.096). The indemnity claim arises at approval even though it is payable only at the agreed end date, and a justified later dismissal ends the contract early without destroying the agreement. For the employer living abroad, the lesson is operational: between signature and departure, keep management supervision in place through your local representative, because serious misconduct discovered in that window can still justify ending the contract immediately, through a proper dismissal procedure, while the indemnity already vested at approval remains due. Do not improvise that dismissal by email from abroad without procedure; it must itself survive review, and an unjustified dismissal layered over a valid agreement multiplies the cost instead of reducing it.

Three recurring mistakes complete the risk map. Dating the end of the contract before the day after approval voids the economics of the file, since the statute ties validity to approval and the end date to the day after it. Paying below the floor, or dressing salary arrears up as separation indemnity, triggers a reasoned refusal and restarts the clock. Finally, treating the rupture conventionnelle as a disguised economic measure for several employees at once drags the file into the collective exclusions recalled above. Run individually, documented calmly, filed online and priced above the floor, the negotiated exit remains the fastest lawful way to part with a hire that did not work out, and the employee’s preserved unemployment rights often make it the easiest to propose. The Ministry of Labour’s dedicated page usefully restates the whole individual procedure with its forms and time limits (see Ministry of Labour, rupture conventionnelle of a permanent contract).

Conclusion

A rupture conventionnelle lets a foreign founder end a French permanent contract without a dismissal battle, provided mutual consent is real and the timetable is respected: a genuine interview with the assistance right honoured, a written agreement signed in as many originals as parties, a fifteen-calendar-day withdrawal period running from the day after signature, an online TéléRC filing with the labour administration, fifteen working days of review with silence meaning approval, and a departure dated at the earliest the day after approval. Price the specific indemnity at or above the statutory floor of one quarter month per year for the first ten years and one third beyond, computed on gross reference pay with months beyond full years counted proportionally, and have the payroll treatment checked before signature since the indemnity follows its own social-security and tax regime. Then keep the consent file spotless, because the labour court can be seized within twelve months of approval, a proven defect of consent turns the agreement into a dismissal without real and serious cause under the statutory scale, and even valid agreements vest the indemnity at approval while later misconduct can only end the contract early. Managed this way from abroad through a mandated representative and a responsive payroll provider, the negotiated exit closes the file in about five weeks, preserves the employee’s path to France Travail benefits, and leaves the company’s Kbis (the official company identity extract issued by the clerk of the commercial court, the greffe) and its URSSAF record (the social-security collection agency) untouched by litigation.