You live abroad, your French company has one employee, and this morning you learn that this employee stole from the till, falsified an expense report, insulted a key client, or simply stopped coming to work without explanation. In France, serious misconduct (faute grave) allows the fastest and cheapest exit — dismissal without notice and without severance — but it also runs on the shortest fuses in the Labour Code. Act too slowly and you lose the right to punish; suspend the employee the wrong way and the suspension itself becomes the fault; qualify ordinary poor performance as misconduct and the labour court will reclassify the dismissal and make you pay the very sums you tried to save. This guide explains, for a foreign founder or foreign parent company with a French entity, how to handle serious misconduct by a first French hire lawfully from a distance: what to do in the first 48 hours, how to run the disciplinary procedure, what you still owe, and how the judges will review the file.
French law treats misconduct dismissals as a sub-species of dismissal with its own added layer: the disciplinary rules of Articles L.1331-1 to L.1332-5 of the Labour Code sit on top of the ordinary dismissal rules. The stakes are binary. If the faute grave — behaviour making it impossible for the employee to remain in the company even during a notice period — is established and the procedure is clean, the company pays no notice and no severance. If the facts are unproven, imprecise, or too old, or if a deadline was missed, the dismissal falls back to an ordinary dismissal without real and serious cause, with damages on top. Distance raises the difficulty: evidence must be gathered in France, someone must meet the employee in France, and every letter must travel on time. None of this prevents success, but improvisation from abroad is how these files are lost.
This article covers disciplinary dismissal of a permanent employee (CDI, contrat à durée indéterminée) employed by your French company — typically a SAS (société par actions simplifiée), a SARL (société à responsabilité limitée), or a registered branch (succursale). It explains the acronyms foreign readers meet: prud’hommes (conseil de prud’hommes, the elected labour court), DRIEETS (the regional labour administration in Île-de-France), DSN (déclaration sociale nominative, the monthly payroll return), URSSAF (the social-contributions collector), and France Travail (the public employment operator). Paris and Île-de-France practical points are integrated throughout. Readers facing simple poor performance rather than misconduct should compare with our guides on ordinary dismissal and on negotiated separation before choosing the hardest path.
I. How do you react lawfully when your French employee commits serious misconduct from abroad?
The first question is always qualification: is this really misconduct, and is it serious? Misconduct means a voluntary breach of professional obligations — theft, fraud, violence, insubordination, deliberate abandonment of post, disclosure of confidential data. Poor results, errors from inexperience, or a bad hire are generally not misconduct unless a deliberate refusal of work is proven. Faute grave adds a precise test applied by the courts: the behaviour must make it impossible to keep the employee in the company, even for the duration of a notice period. Abandonment of post with no justification, proven theft, or violence at work typically meets it; a single rude email or a disputed cash difference usually does not, and belongs to ordinary dismissal or a lesser sanction. The distinction matters because everything that follows — no notice, no severance — stands or falls on it.
French disciplinary law starts with a wide definition. Article L.1331-1 of the Labour Code provides that “Constitue une sanction toute mesure, autre que les observations verbales, prise par l’employeur à la suite d’un agissement du salarié considéré par l’employeur comme fautif, que cette mesure soit de nature à affecter immédiatement ou non la présence du salarié dans l’entreprise, sa fonction, sa carrière ou sa rémunération.” This broad definition, stated in Article L.1331-1 of the Labour Code, means almost any response beyond a spoken remark — written warning, disciplinary suspension, demotion, dismissal — triggers the disciplinary procedure. A founder who emails from abroad that the employee is suspended for a week and pay is docked has just imposed a sanction, and must have followed the procedure first. When in doubt, treat the measure as a sanction and apply the procedure.
A. How do you freeze the situation: immediate conservatory suspension and evidence?
Where the employee’s continued presence is dangerous — suspected theft with access to cash or stock, violence, data theft with system access — the employer may order an immediate conservatory suspension (mise à pied conservatoire): the employee stays home, pay is provisionally withheld, pending the disciplinary outcome. This is a protective measure, not a punishment, and it can be decided instantly, including by phone from abroad confirmed in writing the same day. But it is only lawful where genuinely indispensable. Article L.1332-3 of the Labour Code frames it as follows: “Lorsque les faits reprochés au salarié ont rendu indispensable une mesure conservatoire de mise à pied à effet immédiat, aucune sanction définitive relative à ces faits ne peut être prise sans que la procédure prévue à l’article L. 1332-2 ait été respectée.” The same Article L.1332-3 therefore ties the suspension to the full disciplinary procedure that must follow.
Do not confuse the conservatory suspension with the disciplinary suspension (mise à pied disciplinaire), which is itself a sanction with a fixed duration and requires the prior procedure. And manage the payroll consequence now: if the final outcome is dismissal for serious misconduct, the withheld pay for the suspension period stays withheld; if the outcome is a lesser sanction or no sanction, the suspension pay must be reimbursed. Tell your French payroll provider on day one which type of suspension you ordered and instruct them to hold, not to delete, the lines. Change passwords, badge access, and signature delegations the same day through your local contact, and record each step with timestamps — the court will ask whether the response was immediate and proportionate.
Evidence gathering starts at once and follows French rules. Collect what exists in France: till logs, access badges, emails, messages, witness accounts written, dated, and signed with the relationship to the parties stated, photos, client complaints, and the employee’s own prior explanations. Private investigators are lawful under conditions but disproportionate for a first-hire file; video surveillance is only usable if the staff were previously informed and the works-council-equivalent consulted, which in practice means existing compliant CCTV, not a camera installed for the occasion. Preserve originals, keep a dated inventory, and have anything in a foreign language translated — a file assembled from abroad with unsourced screenshots and no dates will not survive the doubt-benefits-the-employee rule. Above all, move fast: the two-month clock described below runs from when the employer learned the facts, and every week spent hesitating narrows the options.
B. How do you run the disciplinary procedure: summons, meeting, and timing traps?
The disciplinary interview follows the same shape as the dismissal interview but under its own article, with its own deadlines. Article L.1332-2 of the Labour Code provides that “Lorsque l’employeur envisage de prendre une sanction, il convoque le salarié en lui précisant l’objet de la convocation, sauf si la sanction envisagée est un avertissement ou une sanction de même nature n’ayant pas d’incidence, immédiate ou non, sur la présence dans l’entreprise, la fonction, la carrière ou la rémunération du salarié.” For any dismissal, state the object expressly: dismissal is envisaged. The same Article L.1332-2 gives the employee the right to be assisted at the hearing by a colleague of their choice, and requires that “Au cours de l’entretien, l’employeur indique le motif de la sanction envisagée et recueille les explications du salarié.” Your representative in France must therefore know the facts cold and genuinely listen; a meeting conducted by someone reading a script from the founder without authority to discuss is a documented sham.
Timing is then fenced on both sides. The same Article L.1332-2 provides that “La sanction ne peut intervenir moins de deux jours ouvrables, ni plus d’un mois après le jour fixé pour l’entretien.” This window — no earlier than two working days, no later than one month after the scheduled meeting day — stated in Article L.1332-2 of the Labour Code, is peremptory: a dismissal letter sent after the one-month mark is void as a disciplinary sanction, even if the facts are proven theft. Diary both ends on a French calendar (working days run Monday to Saturday excluding holidays) and send the notification by registered post with acknowledgement of receipt from France. The dismissal letter itself follows the ordinary dismissal form: Article L.1232-6 of the Labour Code provides that “Lorsque l’employeur décide de licencier un salarié, il lui notifie sa décision par lettre recommandée avec avis de réception.” The same Article L.1232-6 requires that “Cette lettre comporte l’énoncé du ou des motifs invoqués par l’employeur.” State dates, places, amounts, witnesses, and the employee’s answers at the meeting; what is not in the letter cannot be added later.
The outer deadline is even more dangerous for founders at a distance. Article L.1332-4 of the Labour Code provides that “Aucun fait fautif ne peut donner lieu à lui seul à l’engagement de poursuites disciplinaires au-delà d’un délai de deux mois à compter du jour où l’employeur en a eu connaissance, à moins que ce fait ait donné lieu dans le même délai à l’exercice de poursuites pénales.” This two-month prescription for starting disciplinary proceedings, stated in Article L.1332-4 of the Labour Code, runs from when the employer — meaning the company through its representatives in France, not the founder reading email abroad weeks later — actually learned the precise facts. Organise reporting so misconduct reaches decision level within days: a local manager who sits on a theft report for six weeks can silently kill the file. The only extension is criminal proceedings started within the same period, which must be real (a filed complaint with a receipt), not a vague threat. Repeated or continuing misconduct restarts analysis per act, but do not artificially revive an old fact by linking it to a minor new one; courts examine each fact’s own date.
Paris practical points for this phase: the summons and the meeting normally happen at the Paris workplace; the outside employee-adviser list for companies without staff representation comes from the DRIEETS Île-de-France and the town hall — cite it in the letter. Give your French representative a written mandate covering the summons, the hearing, and the notification, all in the same name and capacity, and keep the company Kbis extract with the file. If criminal conduct is involved (theft, fraud, forgery), filing a complaint (plainte) at the Paris police station or with the public prosecutor preserves the criminal-track extension and documents seriousness — but it does not replace the labour-law deadlines, which run in parallel.
II. How do you notify, pay and defend a serious-misconduct dismissal?
Once the decision is taken within the one-month window, notify fast and pay what is still due. Serious misconduct removes two payment lines — notice and severance — but never the rest. The exit pack, the final declarations, and the litigation risk that follows are described below. Founders sometimes assume that a thief forfeits everything; French law disagrees, and withholding accrued leave or the employment attestation to punish the employee manufactures a second dispute the company will lose on top of the first.
A. What do you pay and deliver: no notice, no severance, but leave and documents?
Notice is excluded by definition: serious misconduct makes continued presence impossible, so there is no notice to perform or to pay. The Code states the employer’s side symmetrically — Article L.1234-5 of the Labour Code provides that “Lorsque le salarié n’exécute pas le préavis, il a droit, sauf s’il a commis une faute grave, à une indemnité compensatrice.” Read a contrario, as courts do: where serious misconduct is established, no compensatory notice payment is due. Severance follows the same exclusion. Article L.1234-9 of the Labour Code provides that “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.” This exception for serious misconduct, stated in Article L.1234-9 of the Labour Code, removes even the statutory floor — and the collective agreement’s uplift in most agreements too, though the agreement text must be checked line by line because some grant severance more broadly.
What remains due is not negligible, so budget it before deciding. Unused paid leave is always compensated: Article L.3141-28 of the Labour Code provides that “Lorsque le contrat de travail est rompu avant que le salarié ait pu bénéficier de la totalité du congé auquel il avait droit, il reçoit, pour la fraction de congé dont il n’a pas bénéficié, une indemnité compensatrice de congé”. Pro-rata bonuses, overtime arrears, and expense reimbursements are due on proof. And the three exit documents are mandatory exactly as after any termination: the work certificate, since Article L.1234-19 of the Labour Code provides that “A l’expiration du contrat de travail, l’employeur délivre au salarié un certificat dont le contenu est déterminé par voie réglementaire.” the final pay statement, and the employment-center attestation, since Article R.1234-9 of the Labour Code provides that “L’employeur délivre au salarié, au moment de l’expiration ou de la rupture du contrat de travail, les attestations et justifications qui lui permettent d’exercer ses droits aux prestations mentionnées à l’article L. 5421-2 et transmet sans délai ces mêmes attestations à l’opérateur France Travail.” The contract end date for a serious-misconduct dismissal is the notification date itself — backdate nothing, postdate nothing — and the final DSN and URSSAF payments follow that date.
A worked comparison makes the saving — and the gamble — concrete. Take a first hire with two years of service at 3,500 euros gross monthly: an ordinary dismissal costs roughly one month of notice (agreement-dependent) plus at least 1,750 euros of statutory severance plus leave; a serious-misconduct dismissal costs leave only. The difference, several thousand euros, is exactly what the labour court will order back — with Macron-scale damages on top — if the misconduct is disqualified. Never choose the misconduct route to save money on facts that only support ordinary dismissal; the saving inverts into a surcharge.
B. How will the labour court review: two-month clock, proof, and requalification risk?
The employee has a full year to sue, so a quiet departure proves nothing for months. Article L.1471-1 of the Labour Code provides that “Toute action portant sur la rupture du contrat de travail se prescrit par douze mois à compter de la notification de la rupture.” This twelve-month limit for termination disputes, stated in Article L.1471-1 of the Labour Code, means the evidence bundle — summons with tracking, hearing minutes, notification with acknowledgement, exhibits, pay records, attestation transmission proof — must be archived and retrievable for at least that year. The competent court is the labour court of the workplace, so for a Paris employee the Conseil de prud’hommes de Paris, with conciliation first: mandate your representative with a written settlement ceiling before the hearing, because conciliation remains the cheapest exit even from a strong file.
On the merits, the judges verify four things in order: was the two-month prescription respected from actual knowledge; was the disciplinary procedure (assistance notice, hearing, 2-day to 1-month window, reasoned written sanction) respected; are the facts proven by the employer’s documents; and do those facts qualify as serious misconduct making continued presence impossible. Failure at any step requalifies: late proceedings or a missed window voids the sanction; unproven or vague facts fail the real-and-serious-cause test; proven facts below the gravity threshold convert the dismissal into an ordinary dismissal — notice and severance become due retroactively — or, where no real and serious cause exists at all, into an unfair dismissal compensated within the Macron scale of Article L.1235-3 of the Labour Code, which provides that where dismissal lacks real and serious cause the judge awards compensation between the statutory minimum and maximum months. Discrimination or harassment allegations layered onto the dispute remove the scale ceiling and can annul the dismissal, so check the chronology: a sanction issued days after a pregnancy announcement, a harassment complaint, or union activity will be read as retaliation whatever the employer’s intent.
Paris litigation practicalities close the file. File a chronological French-language bundle early — contract, job description, the incident exhibits with dates, witness statements, the summons and its tracking, hearing minutes, the notification and its acknowledgement, pay slips, certificate, final statement, and the France Travail transmission proof. Exchange exhibits before the hearing as the Paris council requires, appear through counsel with the mandated representative reachable, and appeal — to the Paris Court of Appeal within one month — only on advice, since appeals re-examine facts fully and add interest, benefit-reimbursement orders, and costs. Where the facts also support a criminal complaint, coordinate both tracks: an acquittal does not automatically undo the labour assessment, and a conviction does not automatically validate it, because the two judges apply different standards to the same acts.
Conclusion
Serious misconduct by a first French hire can be handled cleanly from abroad when the sequence is respected: secure evidence and access on day one, order a conservatory suspension only where truly indispensable, convene the disciplinary hearing with the assistance notice, decide between two working days and one month, notify by reasoned registered letter, and pay leave plus the three exit documents while withholding only notice and severance. The two-month prescription from actual knowledge governs everything — late knowledge management loses more files than weak facts. Price the alternative honestly before choosing: the thousands saved on notice and severance become damages with interest if the facts fall short of the gravity threshold. A dated, sourced, French-language file built in the first week is what lets a distant founder defend a Paris dismissal a year later. When the facts are doubtful, an ordinary dismissal with notice and severance, or a negotiated separation with proper approval, remains the safer commercial choice for a founder managing the company from another country.