You hired your first employee in France from London, New York, Dubai or Singapore, the Kbis (the official company identity certificate issued by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court) is framed, the DPAE (declaration prealable a l’embauche, the prior hiring declaration filed with URSSAF, the social security collection agency) was filed on time, and three months later the results are not there. The salesperson has no pipeline, the developer misses every deadline, or the working relationship has simply broken down. Ending that first hire from abroad is where foreign founders make their most expensive mistakes.

French law gives you two very different exits, and confusing them is the classic trap. During a valid trial period (periode d’essai, the initial period during which either party can end the contract quickly), the contract can be ended fast and cheaply, but only if the trial clause, its renewal and its notice were handled perfectly. After the trial, or if the trial was invalid, you enter dismissal law (licenciement, the employer-initiated termination of a permanent contract): a mandatory sequence of invitation, preliminary meeting and reasoned notification letter, with statutory severance (indemnite de licenciement), unemployment documents and, if you get it wrong, damages under the statutory scale. A founder who fires by email from another country, without the meeting and without the letter, hands the employee an almost automatic victory before the labour court (conseil de prud’hommes, the employment tribunal).

This guide walks through both exits in practical order for a foreign-owned French company: how to check whether your trial period is still usable, how to end it lawfully from abroad, how to run a dismissal procedure remotely without voiding it, what each exit costs, and which papers prove everything if the dispute reaches Paris. Every decisive rule below is tied to the exact statute or court decision that creates it.

I. Can you still end the contract during the trial period when you manage from abroad?

A. Is your trial period valid: written clause, maximum duration and renewal in writing?

The trial period is never implied. It must be expressly stated in the employment contract or the letter of engagement, with its duration and, where relevant, the possibility of renewal. For a first hire signed quickly by a founder abroad, this is the first document to pull out of the folder: if no trial clause exists, there is no trial, and any early termination is analysed as a dismissal without cause.

Article L1221-19 of the Labour Code caps the initial trial: “Le contrat de travail à durée indéterminée peut comporter une période d’essai dont la durée maximale est : 1° Pour les ouvriers et les employés, de deux mois ; 2° Pour les agents de maîtrise et les techniciens, de trois mois ; 3° Pour les cadres, de quatre mois.” Workers and clerks face a maximum of two months, supervisors and technicians three months, managers (cadres, the executive and managerial category) four months. The applicable collective agreement (convention collective, the industry-wide bargaining agreement) often shortens these ceilings, so check the sector text before counting: a four-month trial for a non-manager is void for the excess, and the termination falls back on dismissal rules.

Renewal is where most trials die. Article L1221-21 of the Labour Code states: “La période d’essai peut être renouvelée une fois si un accord de branche étendu le prévoit.” Renewal is possible only once and only if an extended branch agreement allows it and sets the conditions and durations. Two further conditions come from the courts: the contract itself must allow renewal, and the employee must give a clear and unequivocal written agreement before the initial period expires.

The Court of Cassation, Social Chamber, 11 June 2025, No 23-21.128 (full decision on courdecassation.fr), recalled the rule word for word: “la période d’essai peut être renouvelée une fois. Ce renouvellement fait l’objet d’un accord écrit entre le salarié et l’employeur ou son représentant, avant le terme de la période d’essai initiale.” The Court quashed an appeal ruling that had treated a signed acknowledgement of receipt plus a polite returning email as consent, holding that renewal requires an express and unequivocal written agreement before expiry. In that case the employer had sent a renewal letter for three additional months and the employee had returned it signed with the words “here is the renewal letter signed today”, which the appeal court read as agreement; the Court of Cassation ruled that reading unlawful. For a founder abroad, the practice follows directly: never renew by implied consent, by a pre-ticked clause or by an email exchange after the deadline. Use a separate short amendment stating the renewal duration and the new end date, signed by both sides before the initial trial ends, and only where the branch agreement allows renewal.

A second ruling refines the point for sectors that add conditions. The Court of Cassation, Social Chamber, 27 June 2018, No 16-25.756, published in the Bulletin (full decision on courdecassation.fr), recalled the agreement clause: “dès lors que cela est prévu dans la lettre d’engagement ou le contrat de travail, la période d’essai pourra être renouvelée une fois pour une durée équivalente ou inférieure en cas de nécessité technique”, then approved the appeal court for holding that the employer’s stated need to assess all of the employee’s professional qualities met that technical-necessity condition. Read your own sector agreement before renewing: sometexts demand a substantive reason such as technical necessity, and the renewal letter should state that reason in the agreement’s own words.

Audit your trial today with three questions. Is the clause in writing with a duration at or below the statutory and contractual ceiling? Was any renewal authorised by the branch agreement, provided for in the contract, and signed by the employee before expiry? Are you still inside the resulting end date, notice included? If the answer to any question is no, the trial is over or void, and you must use the dismissal procedure in Part II. Ending a contract under an expired or invalid trial is reclassified as a dismissal without cause, with damages, even if performance was genuinely poor.

B. How do you end the trial lawfully from abroad: notice, form and proof?

Ending the trial does not require a dismissal ground or the dismissal procedure, but it does require notice and a written, provable form. The notice scale is set by Article L1221-25 of the Labour Code, which opens: “Lorsqu’il est mis fin, par l’employeur, au contrat en cours ou au terme de la période d’essai définie aux articles L. 1221-19 à L. 1221-24”, the employee must be warned within a minimum period running from twenty-four hours below eight days of presence, forty-eight hours between eight days and one month, two weeks after one month, up to one month after three months of presence. The trial itself, renewal included, cannot be extended by the notice period, and failure to respect the notice opens a right to compensatory pay equal to the wages the employee would have received through the end of the notice, paid-leave indemnity included.

Form matters as much as timing. Notify the end of the trial in writing, ideally by hand delivery against receipt if someone can act in France, otherwise by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt (lettre recommandee avec accuse de reception, the tracked registered letter) sent early enough that the notice runs inside the trial. State the last working day explicitly. Keep the sending receipt, the tracking history and the acknowledgement. A founder in another time zone should calendar three dates the day the contract is signed: the trial end date, the last day a renewal can be signed, and the last day notice can be given for each possible end date. Missing the notice deadline by one day converts a clean trial termination into damages.

Who signs from the employer’s side also matters. The president of a SAS (simplified joint-stock company) living abroad can sign, but the employee and later the court need a coherent chain of authority: board or shareholder decision where the articles require one, written delegation (delegation de pouvoir, the written transfer of authority to hire, manage or dismiss) to the person acting in France, and consistent signatures across the contract, the renewal and the termination. A termination signed by someone with no documented authority invites a challenge to the whole measure. Keep delegations in the same folder as the contract.

Pay what is owed at once: salary through the last day, the indemnity for the notice if notice was not worked, accrued paid leave (conges payes, 2.5 working days per month, or 25 working days for a full year), any contractual bonus pro rata where due, and the final pay slip with the DSN (declaration sociale nominative, the single monthly electronic payroll return) updated for the exit. Article L3243-2 of the Labour Code provides: “Lors du paiement du salaire, l’employeur remet aux personnes mentionnées à l’article L. 3243-1 une pièce justificative dite bulletin de paie.” Each final payment needs that supporting pay slip, plus the employment certificate (certificat de travail), the final settlement receipt (solde de tout compte) and the unemployment attestation for France Travail (the employment agency). Handing these over late or with errors does not void the trial termination, but each missing document carries its own damages claim, and a labour court reads sloppy exits as a pattern.

One warning closes this section: do not dress a dismissal up as a trial termination. If the trial had expired, if the real reason is economic or disciplinary rather than professional assessment, or if the employee shows the decision was discriminatory or retaliatory, the court reclassifies the rupture as a dismissal and applies the full procedure and damages below. When in doubt after the audit in section A, run the dismissal procedure: it costs a few weeks and protects against the far larger bill of an unfair dismissal finding.

II. How do you dismiss your first employee after the trial and what does it cost from abroad?

A. What is the mandatory dismissal sequence when the founder is not in France?

Once the trial is over, or where no valid trial exists, ending a CDI (contrat a duree indeterminee, the permanent contract) for personal grounds such as poor performance or loss of confidence requires the personal dismissal procedure. Distance changes none of its steps; it only forces you to organise them earlier and through a properly mandated representative in France.

Step one is the invitation to a preliminary meeting. Article L1232-2 of the Labour Code states: “L’employeur qui envisage de licencier un salarié le convoque, avant toute décision, à un entretien préalable. La convocation est effectuée par lettre recommandée ou par lettre remise en main propre contre décharge. Cette lettre indique l’objet de la convocation. 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.” Before any decision, the employer summons the employee to a preliminary meeting, by registered letter or hand delivery against receipt, stating the purpose, and the meeting cannot take place less than five working days after presentation or delivery. Email, phone calls and video invitations do not replace this letter. The meeting itself can be held by the founder on video only if the employee agrees and a mandated person is present in France; in practice, mandate a representative, hold the meeting at the workplace or a neutral venue in France, let the employee come accompanied, listen, and take notes without announcing the decision on the spot.

Step two is the reasoned notification. 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. Cette lettre comporte l’énoncé du ou des motifs invoqués par l’employeur. 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.” The decision is notified by registered letter with acknowledgement, stating the ground or grounds, and it cannot be sent less than two working days after the scheduled meeting date. The letter sets the boundaries of the dispute: grounds stated precisely and factually, with dates, examples and prior warnings attached, survive; vague formulas such as poor performance with no illustration, or grounds added later, fail. Since 2018 the administration publishes model letters the employer may use, which help small companies avoid formal traps, but the facts must still be real, serious and documented.

Three remote-management points decide success. First, authority: the person who signs the invitation and the dismissal letter must hold a written delegation where the company’s organisation requires one, and the letters should identify the signatory’s capacity. Second, timing: five working days before the meeting, two working days after it, plus postal delays, mean a minimum of about two weeks even before notice starts; schedule the representative, the room and the payroll cut-off accordingly. Third, language and tone: write the grounds in factual French with dates and figures, keep performance reviews, warning letters, objective targets and email evidence consistent with the letter, and never mention a discriminatory ground, a pregnancy, a mandate or retaliation for a complaint. An employee with less than a year of service can still win where the procedure was ignored or the stated ground is not real and serious.

Special cases need counsel before any letter goes out: dismissal during sick leave suspension, during maternity or paternity protection, of an employee with a disability accommodation, or of a protected representative requires additional authorisations or is simply barred for the period, and breaching those protections voids the dismissal with minimum damages of six months’ salary and possible reinstatement. For a first hire, check pregnancy, work accident and mandate status before drafting anything.

B. What will the exit cost: notice, severance, Macron scale and proof that survives the labour court?

A lawful dismissal after the trial costs three layers: the notice (preavis, the period the contract continues after notification) or its indemnity where the employer releases the employee, the statutory or contractual severance, and the end-of-contract documents with their payroll flow. An unlawful dismissal adds a fourth layer: damages within the statutory scale, plus procedural indemnities.

Statutory severance starts at eight months of service. Article L1234-9 of the Labour Code states: “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.” A CDI employee dismissed with eight months of uninterrupted service is entitled to severance unless dismissed for serious misconduct, calculated on prior gross pay under rates set by regulation, currently one quarter of a month per year of service up to ten years, then one third beyond, with the collective agreement often improving this floor. Below eight months, no statutory severance is due, but the agreement may grant some, and notice and paid leave remain payable. Serious misconduct (faute grave) removes severance and notice but must be genuinely serious and proven; labelling ordinary underperformance as misconduct to save severance backfires, because the court reclassifies the ground and awards both the severance and damages.

Where the dismissal lacks a real and serious cause, or the procedure was breached, damages follow the Macron scale. Article L1235-3 of the Labour Code opens: “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.” If the dismissal is without real and serious cause, the judge may propose reinstatement, and if either side refuses, the judge awards an indemnity within the scale’s minimum and maximum, graduated by seniority and, for the minimum, by company size. For a first hire with under one year of service, the ceiling is one to two months depending on the table version, plus possible separate indemnities for procedural breaches, missing documents and unpaid wages. The scale caps the headline damages, but the stack of notice, leave, back pay, procedural indemnity and document penalties still makes a botched dismissal of a short-service employee cost several months of salary.

The file that survives the labour court is built before the dispute. Keep the DPAE receipt from hiring, the signed contract and any trial amendment, the staff register extract (Article L1221-13 of the Labour Code provides: “Un registre unique du personnel est tenu dans tout établissement où sont employés des salariés.”), every pay slip (Article L3243-2: “Lors du paiement du salaire, l’employeur remet aux personnes mentionnées à l’article L. 3243-1 une pièce justificative dite bulletin de paie.”), the DSN receipts, the invitation letter with its sending proof, the meeting notes, the dismissal letter with its acknowledgement, the final settlement, the employment certificate and the France Travail attestation. Courts and URSSAF auditors read gaps against the employer, because the employer controls the records. A complete file often settles the case at conciliation; a thin file pushes it to judgment.

Two parallel risks deserve a final word. Concealed employment poisons any exit: Article L8221-3 of the Labour Code targets the employer who “n’a pas procédé aux déclarations qui doivent être faites aux organismes de protection sociale ou à l’administration fiscale en vertu des dispositions légales en vigueur”, and Article L8223-1 adds: “En cas de rupture de la relation de travail, le salarié auquel un employeur a eu recours dans les conditions de l’article L. 8221-3 ou en commettant les faits prévus à l’article L. 8221-5 a droit à une indemnité forfaitaire égale à six mois de salaire.” Six months’ salary on top of everything, regardless of seniority. And a fixed-term hire used for the first post must respect its own regime: Article L1245-1 provides: “Est réputé à durée indéterminée tout contrat de travail conclu en méconnaissance des dispositions des articles L. 1242-1 à L. 1242-4”, so a CDD (contrat a duree determinee, the fixed-term contract) signed outside its narrow cases becomes a CDI from day one, and ending it as a CDD becomes an unfair dismissal.

For Paris and Ile-de-France (the Paris region), the competent court is the conseil de prud’hommes of the place of work, for Paris the court near Place Saint-Charles, with a conciliation stage first; the regional labour authority (DREETS, direction regionale de l’economie, de l’emploi, du travail et des solidarites) supervises collective procedures; and practical points such as transport reimbursement and occupational health scheduling affect timing. None of this changes the statutes above, but a founder in another time zone should mandate local counsel early, because every deadline runs in French working days and every letter must arrive in the right form.

Conclusion

When your first French hire does not work out, audit before you act. If a written trial clause is still running, with any renewal signed in time and in the agreement’s terms, end the trial in writing with the correct notice and full final pay. If the trial is over or was never valid, run the dismissal sequence exactly: registered invitation stating its purpose, at least five working days to the meeting, a hearing with an accompanied employee, then a reasoned registered letter at least two working days later, followed by notice, severance from eight months under L1234-9, documents and payroll updates. The 11 June 2025 and 27 June 2018 rulings show how strictly courts read trial renewals, and the L1235-3 scale shows the price of skipping the procedure. A disciplined exit costs weeks; an improvised email from abroad costs months of salary.

Need a quick opinion on your case

First French hire not working out, trial termination, dismissal letter, severance or labour court summons while you live abroad: get a clear answer before you sign or send anything. Telephone consultation: 80 EUR TTC. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm, in Paris and Ile-de-France or remotely from abroad. Send your contract, trial clause, invitation or dismissal letter through our contact page for a paid first review at 80 EUR TTC.