You kept your London job and moved to France, and now do the same work from a desk in Lyon, Bordeaux or Paris for a British employer with no office and no company in France. Your contract still says English law, your salary still arrives in pounds, and your employer still runs a UK payroll. Two questions then decide whether this arrangement survives contact with the French authorities: which country’s employment law actually governs your contract now that your desk is in France, and which French residence document authorises you to do paid work here at all. The tax and social security side of the same move, meaning where the salary is taxed and who collects contributions on it, is settled in our companion guide on living in France while paid from London, which explains French tax residence, article 15 of the 2008 treaty and URSSAF affiliation. This article takes the next two switches in order: the employment law that protects your French home office even against an English-law clause, and the permit that makes the work lawful, with the challenge routes when a dismissal, a refusal or a removal order arrives.

The starting point is that France applies its rules by territory. The contract can choose English law, and that choice has effects, but it cannot strip away the French protections that the parties are not allowed to contract out of once France is where you habitually work. In parallel, a British citizen who arrived after the transition period needs a work-authorised immigration status before doing the job from France, because the long-stay visitor route that suits a retiree prohibits paid activity. The references below go to the official texts on Légifrance, to published decisions of the Cour de cassation, to the European regulation on applicable law, and to the official guidance of service-public.fr, URSSAF, Cleiss and gov.uk. Every French term is explained the first time it appears.

I. Which Employment Law Governs Your UK Contract at a French Desk

A. France Is Your Habitual Workplace, So French Mandatory Protections Apply Despite the English-Law Clause

The European rule that decides this conflict is article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations, known to lawyers as Rome I. Its first paragraph preserves the parties’ choice of law but caps its effect. As recited by the Cour de cassation, “Selon l’article 8 de ce règlement, le contrat individuel de travail est régi par la loi choisie par les parties conformément à l’article 3. Ce choix ne peut avoir pour résultat de priver le travailleur de la protection que lui assurent les dispositions auxquelles il ne peut être dérogé par accord en vertu de la loi qui, à défaut de choix, aurait été applicable selon les paragraphes 2, 3 et 4 de cet article” (Cass. soc., 8 Dec. 2021, no. 20-14.178). The default rule in paragraph 2 then points to the habitual workplace: “Selon ce paragraphe 2, à défaut de choix exercé par les parties, le contrat individuel de travail est régi par la loi du pays dans lequel ou, à défaut, à partir duquel le travailleur, en exécution du contrat, accomplit habituellement son travail.” A brief posting to another country does not move that habitual workplace, which is why occasional London trips leave the French analysis intact, and why the contract amendment described below should record France as the workplace in plain terms.” For a British worker whose desk has been in France for months or years, with only occasional trips to London, the habitual workplace is France, and the English-law clause operates only so far as it gives at least as much protection as the French rules the parties cannot set aside.

The Cour de cassation applies exactly that two-stage reasoning to French working-time law. It holds that outside postings covered by the posting directive, “la législation française sur la durée du travail ne constitue pas une loi de police mais relève des dispositions auxquelles il ne peut être dérogé par accord au sens de l’article 8, § 1, du règlement n° 593/2008” (Cass. soc., 8 Dec. 2021, no. 20-14.178). To locate that habitual workplace, a court looks at where the work is actually performed day after day, where the worker receives instructions and returns account of the activity, where the professional tools and files are kept, and where the worker is integrated into an organisation, rather than at the letterhead on the contract or the country of the payroll. Occasional travel to London for meetings, training days or quarterly reviews does not displace a French habitual workplace when the ordinary working weeks are spent at the French desk, and neither does payment in sterling into a British account. Tax residence and social security affiliation, dealt with in the companion guide, often point the same way in practice, but each system applies its own test, so the employment analysis must be run on its own facts. The distinction is technical but its consequence is concrete: French working-time limits are not an overriding statute imposed on every passing posting, yet for a worker habitually based in France they belong to the protections no agreement can remove. The same non-derogable family includes the statutory minimum wage, minimum paid leave, daily and weekly rest, overtime treatment, health-and-safety duties, and the framework for ending the contract. None of these can be signed away by accepting an English-law contract, a handshake on London terms, or a staff handbook written for the UK office.

In daily remote life this means the French standards sit underneath the English contract and fill every gap where the contract gives less. Working hours are measured against French limits rather than against whatever the London team considers normal, rest breaks and disconnection rights follow French rules, and pay cannot fall below the French minimum for the hours worked, whatever sterling figure the offer letter states. Health and safety travels home with the worker: the employer keeps a duty to protect the workstation, to assess the risks of the home set-up, and to cover occupational accidents, known as accidents du travail, occurring by reason of or in the course of the work. Article L411-1 of the Code de la sécurité sociale treats as an occupational accident “l’accident survenu par le fait ou à l’occasion du travail”, and article L1222-9 of the Code du travail defines télétravail, remote work, as work “effectué par un salarié hors de ces locaux de façon volontaire en utilisant les technologies de l’information et de la communication”. A fall between the desk and the printer during working hours must therefore be declared like any on-site accident, and the employer cannot treat the home as a place where accident notification is unnecessary. Ending the contract is where the gap bites hardest: a dismissal pronounced by email under English procedures, without the French preliminary meeting, notification formalities and severance framework, is exposed before the French employment tribunal, and the detailed procedure for fighting a French dismissal is set out in our guide to challenging an unfair dismissal before the prud’hommes.

B. What the Employer Must Change in Practice: Contract, Payslips, Records and the Tribunal Risk

The safest move for both sides is an amendment, called an avenant, that recognises the French situation instead of leaving the original London contract to collide with it. The amendment should record France as the habitual place of work, confirm that French mandatory protections apply alongside the chosen English law wherever English law gives less, set working hours and on-call expectations against French limits, organise expense reimbursement for the home office, and put in place the remote-work arrangement article L1222-9 expects, whether through a collective agreement, an employer charter after consulting staff representatives, or a written individual agreement. Salary should be expressed with its French minimum-wage compliance visible, and any variable pay, notice periods and post-contract restrictions should be checked against French enforceability conditions, which differ from English ones. This document is also the employer’s best exhibit later: a tribunal that sees a considered amendment treats the employer very differently from one that sees a contract pretending the French years never happened.

Paperwork must then follow French payroll form, because French proof rules decide French disputes. The worker needs French-format payslips, time and workload records, and entry in the single employment register, rather than UK P60s alone, and the employer files the pre-hiring declaration, the déclaration préalable à l’embauche, before the French-based work starts. Where the UK employer has no French establishment, registration runs through the dedicated channel: URSSAF directs a foreign company established abroad, with no establishment in France, that takes on an employee on French soil to its dedicated foreign-firms service for the hiring formalities and the declaration and payment of social contributions (URSSAF, service Firmes étrangères). Affiliation itself follows the worker’s physical presence: article L111-2-2 of the Code de la sécurité sociale affiliates persons working on French soil for employers “ayant ou non un établissement en France”, and the Cour de cassation confirms that “toute personne exerçant une activité salariée ou non sur le territoire français est obligatoirement affiliée au régime obligatoire de sécurité sociale français, sous réserve des traités et accords internationaux” (Cass. 2e civ., 20 Mar. 2025, no. 23-12.264). Temporary posting, or détachement, is the only narrow alternative, and article L1262-1 of the Code du travail allows an employer established outside France to post staff only “temporairement”, while the post-Brexit guidance confirms the arrangement with Britain survives strictly capped at 24 months with a portable A1 form (Cleiss, FAQ Brexit). A permanent move to France sits outside that frame, so full French registration is the baseline, as explained in the companion tax and contributions guide.

Disputes belong to the French employment tribunal of the place of work, the conseil de prud’hommes, which hears individual contract claims between worker and employer. For a Paris home office that is the Paris tribunal; for a provincial home it is the tribunal of that area. The worker who is dismissed, underpaid against French minima, or left without proper accident cover brings the claim there, relying on the French payslips, time records and the amended contract. The employer who ignored registration faces a parallel front: URSSAF inspectors can verify, for staff working in France for a foreign-seat employer, “les déclarations qui doivent être faites par l’employeur aux organismes de protection sociale” and collect any documents showing “si l’employeur dispose d’une affiliation à la sécurité sociale française”, and a court that annuls such a control for lack of power will itself be overturned (Cass. 2e civ., 16 Oct. 2025, no. 23-14.039). Every employment dispute therefore has a short deadline running from the notification, whether it is the dismissal letter, the pay claim or the reassessment, so each letter must be kept with its envelope or electronic receipt and shown to counsel immediately. The mirror principle for staff sent the other way confirms the logic: where French law keeps posted workers under its legislation without an applicable international instrument, it does so only if “l’employeur s’engage à s’acquitter de l’intégralité des cotisations dues auprès de la caisse d’affiliation du salarié” (Cass. 2e civ., 13 Oct. 2022, no. 21-13.252). Someone always pays into the French funds for work done in France, and the employer’s registration is how that duty is discharged.

II. Which Residence Permit Lets You Work Remotely for a British Employer

A. The Salaried Route: an Employer-Led Work Authorisation Before the Salarié Card

A British citizen who arrived after the end of the transition period is a third-country national for immigration purposes and needs a work-authorised status before starting French-based employment. Article L421-1 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile provides that “L’étranger qui exerce une activité salariée sous contrat de travail à durée indéterminée se voit délivrer une carte de séjour temporaire”, a card which then bears the word salarié as its mention, and that “La délivrance de cette carte de séjour est subordonnée à la détention préalable d’une autorisation de travail”. The sequence matters: the work authorisation comes first, the residence card follows. The request for authorisation is filed by the employer rather than the worker, before employment begins, and it must name the French home address as the place of employment from the outset, because a remote worker’s place of work is the home, not the London office. The official guidance reminds employers that the employer must have the authenticity of the permit verified by the prefecture of the place of employment at least 2 working days before the start date (service-public.fr, work authorisation for foreign employees). In the Paris region the file passes through the online foreign-labour channel under the regional directorate, so a Paris-based remote worker’s application must be consistent from the first screen: Paris address, UK employer without French establishment, salaried role performed in France.

Three neighbouring situations must not be confused with this route. The first is the Withdrawal Agreement beneficiary who already holds a WARP card, meaning a withdrawal-agreement residence permit, with the right to work: that status protects people already settled before the end of the transition period, and its renewal follows its own rules, as explained in our guide to renewing a WARP card. A newly arrived remote worker cannot borrow it. The second is short-term posting, détachement, where the UK employer sends an employee to France temporarily while the British employment relationship continues: that arrangement lives under article L1262-1 with its temporary character and, for Britain, the 24-month A1 frame described above, not under a French salaried card. A permanent home in France with no return date is the opposite of a posting, and dressing it up as one invites reclassification. The third is the general newcomers’ landscape of visas and cards, mapped in our newcomer’s visa guide; within that landscape the remote employee of a foreign company follows the salaried path, with the employer’s authorisation request as the key that unlocks the card. On the British side, gov.uk sends the same message from the other shore: to check which visa or residence permit is needed for living in France, noting that taking up work is one of the purposes for which such a permit can be obtained (Living in France – GOV.UK), with the French visa wizard then sorting applicants toward the work-authorised routes.

B. The Visitor Trap, the Status Change, and How to Challenge a Refusal or a Removal Order

The common trap is the long-stay visitor visa, the visa de long séjour visiteur, which suits a retiree living on independent means but prohibits any paid activity in France. A British remote worker who settles in France on visitor status and keeps working for the London employer is working without authorisation, even where the salary is properly declared and taxed. The consequences run on two tracks. For the worker, unauthorised work means refusal when the permit comes up for renewal, withdrawal of the document, and exposure to a removal order, the obligation de quitter le territoire français, which can bar later applications. For the UK employer, having staff work in France without the required authorisation draws the penalties for employing a foreign worker without permission, on top of the contribution reassessments described in the companion guide. The visitor route must therefore be understood for what it is: lawful residence without lawful work. Anyone already in France on visitor status should organise the change of status toward a work-authorised permit before continuing to work, with the employer’s authorisation request filed first and the employment genuinely suspended or deferred until the new document arrives where the file requires it.

Where the administration says no, each refusal has its own challenge and its own clock, and the clocks are short. A refused work authorisation is contested by the employer through the administrative appeal routes stated in the decision, then before the administrative court, the tribunal administratif, of the place of employment. A refused or withdrawn residence card, or a removal order served with it, goes to the same court under the very short deadlines that run from personal notification, measured in days or weeks depending on the measure, never in months. The file that wins these cases is assembled before the refusal, not after: the employment contract and any amendment recording France as the workplace, the employer’s authorisation application with its receipt, proof of the French address such as the lease or title deeds with utility bills, evidence of resources, and every administrative letter kept with its envelope or electronic acknowledgement. The work-authorisation decision examines the reality of the job on offer, including the genuine character of the post, the match between the role and the worker, and the state of the local employment market for the occupation concerned, so the employer’s file should describe the actual duties, the working pattern from the French address, and the salary terms with the same care as the contract itself. Arguments that persuaded no one include starting work while the application is still pending, presenting a London payslip as proof of French authorisation, or relying on a visitor visa with a verbal assurance. The tribunal checks papers and dates, and it enforces the sequence of authorisation first, work second, without exception for sympathetic situations or senior job titles.

Conclusion

A British worker who moves to France and keeps a UK job must therefore secure two things beyond the tax and contribution position: a contract that respects the French mandatory protections of the habitual workplace under article 8 of the Rome I Regulation, and a residence document that expressly authorises salaried work, obtained after the employer’s work-authorisation request. The English-law clause keeps a role, but only above the French floor, and the visitor visa keeps a role, but only for residence without work. Tax residence under the 2008 treaty and URSSAF registration through the foreign-firms channel complete the picture and are covered in the companion guides linked above. Keep the amended contract, the French payslips and time records, the authorisation receipts, the address proofs and every notification with its date of receipt in one file, diary each deadline the day it arrives, and challenge every dismissal, refusal or removal order through its proper court with the exact text attached. The London career and the French life fit together well once each system is given what it requires, and they collide expensively when any one of them is treated as a formality.