You hired your first employee in France from abroad, and now the relationship is not working, or the role has disappeared, or you have simply agreed together that it is time to part ways. Dismissal feels brutal, resignation will never come, and a dispute before the French employment tribunal (conseil de prud’hommes, the court that hears employment cases) would cost you flights, lawyers and months of distraction. France offers a third way: the rupture conventionnelle, usually translated as mutual separation or contractual termination, a negotiated exit signed by both sides and approved by the administration. It is the most used friendly exit in French employment law, and it works even when the employer lives on another continent — provided every step is documented, because distance magnifies every procedural mistake. Since 2022 the approval request must travel through an online service, the administration checks genuine consent within fifteen working days, and the payout cannot fall below the statutory dismissal floor. Get the meetings, the paper, the withdrawal period and the filing right, and your employee leaves with money and unemployment rights while you close the file cleanly. Get them wrong, and the separation is declared void and reclassified as a dismissal without real and serious cause, with damages on top. This article explains, for a foreign founder or director living outside France, how to agree a valid mutual separation, what the approval stage controls, how to run each step from abroad, and what the exit costs if it is challenged.

I. What a Mutual Separation Requires When You Employ in France

A. Can You Agree a Clean Exit With Your French Employee, and What Must the Meeting and the Paper Contain?

The foundation is consent, and only consent. Article L1237-11 of the Code du travail (the French Labour Code) states that « L’employeur et le salarié peuvent convenir en commun des conditions de la rupture du contrat de travail qui les lie. » It adds three decisive sentences: « La rupture conventionnelle, exclusive du licenciement ou de la démission, ne peut être imposée par l’une ou l’autre des parties. », « Elle résulte d’une convention signée par les parties au contrat. », and « Elle est soumise aux dispositions de la présente section destinées à garantir la liberté du consentement des parties. » In plain English: employer and employee may jointly agree the terms of the breakup, neither side may force it, the deal must be a signed agreement, and the whole procedure exists to protect free consent. A mutual separation is therefore impossible against an employee who refuses, and dangerous with an employee who signs under pressure. From abroad, pressure is easy to allege — late-night messages across time zones, a take-it-or-leave-it email, a video call with two managers facing one employee — so every exchange must read, months later, as an offer the employee could refuse.

Consent is built during one or more meetings, and the assistance rules matter more in a small foreign-held company than anywhere else. Article L1237-12 of the Code du travail provides that « Les parties au contrat conviennent du principe d’une rupture conventionnelle lors d’un ou plusieurs entretiens au cours desquels le salarié peut se faire assister », either « par une personne de son choix appartenant au personnel de l’entreprise » or, where the company has no staff representative body, by an outside employee adviser (conseiller du salarié) chosen from an official list drawn up by the administration. Your French subsidiary with one or two employees has no works council and no union delegate, so tell the employee in writing, before the meeting, that an outside adviser may attend, and give the list and the contact details. The mirror rule protects you: « Lors du ou des entretiens, l’employeur a la faculté de se faire assister quand le salarié en fait lui-même usage. » If the employee brings someone, you may bring your accountant, your lawyer or your French manager, after informing the employee beforehand. Hold the meeting by video call if you cannot fly in — the statute does not require physical presence — but record the invitations, the information about assistance rights, the dates and the attendees in writing. A founder who runs the whole negotiation from abroad with no paper trail hands the employee’s lawyer the exact argument that consent was neither free nor informed.

The signed agreement must price the exit at or above the legal floor. Article L1237-13 of the Code du travail states that « La convention de rupture définit les conditions de celle-ci, notamment le montant de l’indemnité spécifique de rupture conventionnelle qui ne peut pas être inférieur à celui de l’indemnité prévue à l’article L. 1234-9 ». The specific mutual-separation payment, called the indemnité spécifique de rupture conventionnelle, can never be lower than the statutory dismissal indemnity. That floor applies once the employee has eight months of continuous service, since « 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. » The regulatory scale is fixed by article R1234-2 of the Code du travail: « 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. » Take a concrete case: an employee with three years of service and a gross monthly reference salary of 3,000 euros brings a floor of three quarters of a month, or 2,250 euros. In practice the negotiated payment often exceeds the floor, because the employee trades job security for money, but it can never go below it. The Cour de cassation polices that floor strictly: on 30 September 2020, the Social Chamber, in appeal number 19-15.675 (Cour de cassation, chambre sociale, 30 septembre 2020, pourvoi n° 19-15.675), recalled that Selon l’article L. 1237-13 du code du travail, la convention de rupture définit les conditions de celle-ci, notamment le montant de l’indemnité spécifique de rupture conventionnelle qui ne peut pas être inférieur à celui de l’indemnité prévue à l’article L. 1234-9 du code du travail, approved the appeal court’s computation method, and ended with REJETTE le pourvoi. Compute the floor on the correct reference salary — the average of the last twelve or three months, whichever is more favourable — and show the calculation inside the agreement. An underpaid floor voids the approval and everything built on it.

The agreement must also date the exit correctly and survive the withdrawal period. Article L1237-13 continues: « Elle fixe la date de rupture du contrat de travail, qui ne peut intervenir avant le lendemain du jour de l’homologation. » The contract ends the day after approval at the earliest, never before. Then comes the cooling-off right: « A compter de la date de sa signature par les deux parties, chacune d’entre elles dispose d’un délai de quinze jours calendaires pour exercer son droit de rétractation. » Fifteen calendar days, for both sides, starting from signature. And the form of withdrawal is a trap for distant employers: « Ce droit est exercé sous la forme d’une lettre adressée par tout moyen attestant de sa date de réception par l’autre partie. » Any means that proves the date of receipt — registered letter with acknowledgement, hand delivery against receipt, or an electronic method with proof of delivery. An employee who claims to have withdrawn by an untraceable phone call creates exactly the dispute you must prevent: acknowledge every message in writing, confirm receipt dates, and never file for approval before day sixteen.

B. Why Does Approval Decide Everything, and What Destroys Consent?

No approval, no separation. Article L1237-14 of the Code du travail provides that « A l’issue du délai de rétractation, la partie la plus diligente adresse une demande d’homologation à l’autorité administrative, avec un exemplaire de la convention de rupture. » Either side may file, in practice the employer does, through the TéléRC online service, which has been mandatory for approval requests since 1 April 2022. The administration — the DREETS (Direction régionale de l’économie, de l’emploi, du travail et des solidarités, the regional authority for employment and labour matters), acting through its local DDETSPP unit — then checks the file: « 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. » Fifteen working days to verify the conditions and free consent. Silence means yes: « A défaut de notification dans ce délai, l’homologation est réputée acquise et l’autorité administrative est dessaisie. » And the sanction of skipping this stage is absolute: « La validité de la convention est subordonnée à son homologation. » An unapproved agreement is not a cheaper exit; it is no exit at all, and any separation carried out under it is reclassified as a dismissal without real and serious cause, opening damages, back pay and reimbursement of unemployment benefits to France Travail (the French public employment service, formerly Pôle emploi).

Approval is refused or later annulled where consent was defective or the guarantees were ignored, and a September 2025 Paris ruling shows how courts examine a file run at a distance. On 3 September 2025, the Paris Court of Appeal, Employment Chamber 6, in case number 22/00590 (Cour d’appel de Paris, pôle 6, chambre 6, 3 septembre 2025, RG n° 22/00590), reviewed a mutual separation signed on 24 August 2020 in a one-shareholder nail-salon company, approved by the administration on 30 September 2020, then annulled by the Fontainebleau employment tribunal, which had ANNULE la rupture conventionnelle and reclassified the breakup as a dismissal without real and serious cause. The employee argued, among other things, that the employer had sent the administration a different form from the one she received, quoting that l’imprimé Cerfa adressé par l’employeur à la Direccte est différent de celui remis à la salariée, and that this proved fraud in the approval process. The Court of Appeal recalled the governing principle in these words: Le vice du consentement ne se présume pas et il incombe à celui qui s’en prévaut d’en rapporter la preuve. A defect of consent is never presumed; whoever alleges it must prove it. Comparing the approved copy with the employee’s copy, the court found only an added handwritten note, held that aucune fraude de l’employeur dans la procédure d’homologation n’est établie par les pièces communiquées, noted that the company had indeed sent the administration the agreement the employee had signed and that she had previously received her own copy, and observed that the administration already knew of a dispute since the employee had contacted it herself that summer. The lesson for a founder abroad is twofold. First, the formalities that save you are simple: give the employee a signed copy of the exact agreement you file, keep proof of delivery, and file the identical text. Second, the existence of a disagreement at signing does not itself kill the deal — the Court of Cassation has long held that a dispute between the parties at the time of signing does not by itself affect validity — but a proven defect of consent, threats, deceit or a bypassed guarantee does, and then the whole construction collapses into an unfair dismissal.

Three boundary situations deserve a warning before you start. Protected employees — pregnant employees, staff representatives, employees on maternity or work-accident leave, listed in articles L2411-1 and L2411-2 of the Code du travail — follow a heavier track: « Les salariés bénéficiant d’une protection mentionnés aux articles L. 2411-1 et L. 2411-2 peuvent bénéficier des dispositions de la présente section. », but « la rupture conventionnelle est soumise à l’autorisation de l’inspecteur du travail », and the contract can end only the day after that authorisation, not the day after a standard approval. Check protection status before the first meeting; discovering a pregnancy or a mandate afterwards does not repair a standard filing. Next, the mutual separation is closed in restructuring contexts: « La présente section n’est pas applicable aux ruptures de contrats de travail résultant », among other cases, « Des plans de sauvegarde de l’emploi dans les conditions définies par l’article L. 1233-61 ». If the exit belongs to a collective redundancy plan or a collective mutual-separation agreement, different regimes apply and this article is not your guide. Finally, employees with less than eight months of service have no statutory floor, but the payment must still be real and the consent genuine; a token euro for a quick signature is precisely the file an inspector refuses and a judge annuls.

II. How to Run the Exit From Abroad Without Creating a Lawsuit

A. How Do You Sign, File and Date Each Step From Another Country?

Run the procedure as a dated chain, and let no link stay oral. First, invite the employee in writing to one or two meetings, stating the purpose, the dates, the right to be assisted by a colleague or, since your company has no staff representatives, by an outside employee adviser from the official list, with the list attached. If you hired this employee recently through the standard declaration and contract steps described in our guide on hiring your first French employee from abroad, reuse the same discipline: written documents, acknowledged receipt, everything filed. Second, hold the meetings by video call, with your French accountant or counsel beside you if the employee is assisted, and write a short summary the same day: who attended, what was offered, what was asked, what comes next. Third, send the draft agreement, let the employee take advice, then sign two identical originals — electronic signature with a qualified certificate is accepted in practice, but keep the audit trail — and hand one signed copy to the employee immediately against proof of delivery. The September 2025 Paris case above turned on exactly this point: the employer survived because it proved the employee had received her copy and the filed text matched. Fourth, wait out the fifteen calendar days of withdrawal, watching for any letter, and confirm in writing on day sixteen that no withdrawal reached you. Fifth, file the approval request through TéléRC with the signed agreement attached, to the DREETS competent for the establishment’s location — for a Paris establishment, the Paris unit of the Ile-de-France DREETS — and diary the fifteen working days. If no refusal arrives, approval is deemed granted and the contract ends on the date fixed in the agreement, never before the day after approval. If you chose your French vehicle for its flexibility, as explained in our guide on how to choose between an SAS, an SARL, a branch or a subsidiary in France, remember that employment procedure is identical whatever the vehicle: an SASU with one employee follows the same articles as a group subsidiary.

Dating discipline decides validity more often than money does. Never file before the withdrawal period ends; never set the end date before the day after approval; never let the employee work — or stop working — on dates that contradict the agreement. From abroad, the practical risks are mail and mandates: give your accountant a written mandate to receive administrative mail, to check the TéléRC account, and to alert you daily during the three critical weeks, because a refusal or a request for additional documents unanswered from another time zone becomes final. Keep payslips running until the end date, issue the end-of-contract documents (attestation for France Travail, final payslip, balance of all accounts known as solde de tout compte, work certificate) on time, and pay the separation indemnity with the final settlement. A clean file shows a straight line: invitation, meetings, signed and delivered agreement, silent withdrawal period, TéléRC filing, approval, end documents, payment. Any gap in that line is where the employee’s lawyer will stand.

Paris and Ile-de-France add three local reflexes. First, file to the right office: Paris establishments answer to the Ile-de-France DREETS, and delays and document requests pass through TéléRC, not through paper letters to an old address. Second, expect the Paris employment tribunal to scrutinise consent closely: the capital’s judges see high volumes of mutual separations, know every shortcut, and apply the reclassification sanction without hesitation where the copy was never delivered or the withdrawal letter was ignored. Third, coordinate with the payroll calendar: Paris accountants close payroll early, and a separation indemnity paid late or payslips issued with wrong dates feed both the employee’s claim and an URSSAF (Union de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the agency collecting social contributions) query. Brief your payroll provider before signing, not after approval.

B. What Does the Exit Cost, and What Happens If the Employee Challenges It?

Price the exit as three layers: the statutory floor, the negotiated supplement, and the tax and contribution treatment of the total. The floor follows the quarter-month and third-month scale shown above, computed on the most favourable average salary. The supplement is negotiation: the employee gives up the protection of dismissal law and, in exchange, usually obtains more than the minimum, often one to several months of salary depending on seniority, the circumstances and the strength of a potential dismissal claim. There is no legal ceiling on the supplement, but every euro above the floor buys finality only if the procedure is valid — money never cures a void agreement. On tax and social contributions, French law grants partial exemptions for mutual-separation payments within statutory ceilings that depend on the employee’s age, retirement rights and the amounts involved, while the balance bears income tax, social contributions and the CSG-CRDS levies in full. Do not guess the split from abroad: ask your accountant to compute, before signature, the net for the employee and the total cost for the company under the ceilings applicable that year, and show both figures during the negotiation. An offer that looks generous gross but arrives modest net creates the resentment that ends in a challenge. For the employee, the official guidance confirms the key attraction of the deal: after a mutual separation, the employee may receive unemployment benefits from France Travail, unlike after a resignation, subject to registration, eligibility conditions, waiting periods and benefit ceilings. Mention that prospect honestly without promising any amount or date; the decision belongs to France Travail, not to you.

A challenge, when it comes, attacks consent, the floor or the guarantees, and the price of losing is set by statute and case law. The employee has twelve months from the approval date to seise the employment tribunal to contest the agreement. If the judge finds a defect of consent or a bypassed guarantee — no real meetings, no assistance information, no delivered copy, an underpaid floor, a filing during the withdrawal period — the agreement is annulled and the breakup produces the effects of a dismissal without real and serious cause: back pay, paid-leave arrears, damages within the statutory scale, and reimbursement of unemployment benefits paid to the employee. The September 2025 Paris ruling illustrates the mirror image: because the employer proved delivery of the copy, identity of the filed text and absence of proven fraud, the file survived even though the tribunal had initially annulled it. Your defence, if challenged, will be your paper: invitations, assistance information, meeting notes, the delivered signed copy with proof, the withdrawal-period calendar, the TéléRC receipt, the approval, the end documents and the payment proof. Keep that file for the limitation periods, accessible from abroad, because prud’hommes proceedings last well over a year and memories fade faster than documents.

If something already went wrong, triage fast. An unsigned or undelivered agreement cannot be repaired by backdating — sign and deliver now, restart the withdrawal clock, and refile. A filing made during the withdrawal period must be redone after day fifteen. An underpaid floor calls for an amendment raising the payment before approval, with a fresh withdrawal period running from the amendment. A refusal of approval must be read closely: correct the stated reason — missing document, unclear date, doubtful consent — and refile a clean request rather than arguing by letter. And where the relationship has already broken down beyond repair, with threats or a formal dispute, stop the mutual-separation track and take dismissal or settlement advice instead: the Court of Cassation tolerates a pre-existing dispute, but a separation signed under documented pressure is void, and no indemnity amount saves it. From another country, the discipline is simple to state and hard to keep: write everything, date everything, deliver everything, file the identical text, and pay on time.

Conclusion

The mutual separation is the cleanest way to part with a French employee when both sides genuinely agree, and it works perfectly well with an employer living abroad. The statute asks for little and checks everything: free consent built in documented meetings with assistance rights, a signed agreement paying at least the statutory dismissal floor, a fifteen-calendar-day withdrawal period exercised by provable means, and an approval request through TéléRC granted expressly or deemed granted after fifteen working days of silence. Around the exit stand the costs — floor, supplement, and the tax and contribution split your accountant must compute — and the sanction — annulment reclassified as dismissal without real and serious cause where consent or guarantees failed. Recent Paris litigation shows courts rewarding employers whose copies match, whose deliveries are proven and whose filings are identical, and punishing shortcuts. Run the chain from abroad with that rigour: invite in writing, meet with rights respected, sign and deliver identical copies, wait the fifteen days, file online, diary the approval, issue end documents and pay. Done this way, the separation closes the employment file in weeks, preserves the employee’s benefit rights, and lets you return to running your French company from wherever you live.