Your first French hire has just done something serious: cash missing from the till, a client insulted in writing, a second job with a direct competitor run from the company laptop, or simply no sign of life for ten days. You live in London, New York or Dubai, you have never dismissed anyone under French law, and your instinct is to end it today with a short email. That email is exactly how foreign employers lose before the French labour court — the conseil de prud’hommes, the elected court that hears almost every dismissal dispute — and pay damages that dwarf the few weeks of wages they thought they were saving.

French dismissal law does not ask whether the employee behaved badly in some general moral sense. It asks three cold questions: did you qualify the misconduct correctly, did you act inside the two-month clock, and did you follow each step of the sending procedure to the letter. A recent ruling of the Social Chamber of the Court of Cassation, dated 15 October 2025, shows how strictly judges enforce the second question, and how an employer who documents the date it truly learned the facts can still win. This article gives you the full method, from the assessment of the fault to the defence of your file before the labour court, so that a dismissal decided abroad stands up in France.

I. Qualify the misconduct and freeze the clock before you act

Everything starts before any letter is sent. French law sorts misconduct into three drawers — minor misconduct (faute simple), serious misconduct (faute grave) and gross misconduct (faute lourde) — and the drawer you choose decides what the dismissal costs you. In parallel, a two-month guillotine is already running from the day you genuinely learned the facts. Get either assessment wrong and the rest of the procedure is built on sand.

A. Minor, serious or gross misconduct: the qualification that decides what you pay

The starting point is the legal definition of a disciplinary sanction. Article L1331-1 of the Labour Code states, in its official wording: “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.” The full text is published on Légifrance, article L1331-1 of the Labour Code. Every dismissal for misconduct is therefore a sanction, and every sanction can be reviewed by the labour court, which under article L1333-2 of the Labour Code “peut annuler une sanction irrégulière en la forme ou injustifiée ou disproportionnée à la faute commise” — it may annul a sanction that is procedurally irregular, unjustified or disproportionate to the fault.

For a foreign founder, the practical distinction runs as follows. Minor misconduct (faute simple) justifies dismissal but leaves the employee’s money rights intact: statutory severance (indemnité de licenciement) and notice compensation (indemnité compensatrice de préavis) remain due. Serious misconduct (faute grave) is the fault whose gravity makes it impossible for the employee to stay in the company even for the duration of the notice period; it strips away severance and notice compensation but still entitles the employee to accrued paid leave and to the end-of-contract documents. Gross misconduct (faute lourde) adds an intention to harm the employer — theft to order, sabotage, disclosure of secrets to a competitor — and additionally opens a claim for damages against the employee, which in practice is rarely recoverable from a first hire with no assets.

The money mechanics are fixed by statute, not by negotiation. Article L1234-9 of the Labour Code provides: “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.” Note the two traps for newcomers: eight months of uninterrupted service is enough — your employee of eleven months qualifies — and the exception covers only faute grave and faute lourde, never minor misconduct. The rate itself is set by article R1234-2 of the Labour Code: “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.” For notice, article L1234-5 of the Labour Code states: “Lorsque le salarié n’exécute pas le préavis, il a droit, sauf s’il a commis une faute grave, à une indemnité compensatrice.” In plain terms, calling a minor fault “serious” to save two months of notice and a quarter-month of severance is the single most expensive requalification a foreign employer can buy: the court restores both sums and adds damages for dismissal without real and serious cause.

A confirmed first-instance ruling illustrates what faute grave looks like when it succeeds. In a judgment confirmed on appeal by the Fort-de-France Court of Appeal on 28 May 2025 (RG 24/00115, official record at Cour de cassation database entry for the Fort-de-France ruling of 28 May 2025), an employee who had refused his reassignment, never returned to his post despite several registered letters and produced no justification saw his dismissal upheld on this ground: “Ils présentent un degré de gravité tel qu’ils rendent impossible le maintien du salarié dans l’entreprise. Le licenciement pour faute grave est justifié” — the acts were of such gravity that keeping the employee in the company was impossible, so the dismissal for serious misconduct was justified. Persistence, documented reminders and zero justification: that is the evidentiary trio judges expect. Compare your file honestly against it before choosing the drawer. If the misconduct is real but the employee could plausibly work through a notice period, qualify for minor misconduct, pay what is due and sleep well; the labour court rewards honest qualification and punishes inflated ones. Guidance on the three levels of fault and their consequences is summarised by the administration on service-public.gouv.fr: dismissal for minor, serious or gross misconduct and its consequences.

B. The two-month guillotine and the precautionary suspension that buys time

From the day you learn the facts, you have two months — no more — to start disciplinary proceedings, and this deadline has just been restated in the strongest terms. Article L1332-4 of the Labour Code provides: “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.” Only one escape hatch exists: criminal proceedings started within the same period, for example a complaint for theft or breach of trust (abus de confiance) filed promptly with the police or the public prosecutor.

On 15 October 2025 the Social Chamber of the Court of Cassation gave this rule fresh and very practical content (Cass. soc., 15 October 2025, appeal no. 24-11.188, official text of Court of Cassation ruling 24-11.188 of 15 October 2025). A technical director had been running a competing transport business from his work computer since early 2016; the employer, alerted by vague rumours in 2016 and 2017, only obtained exact proof in December 2017 — attestations from two colleagues, a bailiff’s report (constat d’huissier) and a private investigator’s report — and started proceedings on 15 January 2018. The employee cried time-bar. The Court rejected the appeal and held: “Lorsque les faits sanctionnés par le licenciement ont été commis plus de deux mois avant l’engagement des poursuites disciplinaires, il appartient à l’employeur d’apporter la preuve qu’il n’en a eu connaissance que dans les deux mois ayant précédé l’engagement des poursuites.” The employer bears the burden of proving it learned the exact facts only within the last two months — but vague rumours, questions from a secretary or the employee’s own partial letters do not start the clock. Only “une connaissance exacte de la réalité, de la nature et de l’ampleur des faits reprochés” — exact knowledge of the reality, nature and scale of the alleged facts — counts.

For a founder living abroad, the lesson is operational. First, keep a dated paper trail of how and when each fact reached you: forwarded emails, IT logs, the bailiff’s report, the date a client complaint landed in your inbox. Time zones and travel are no excuse before a judge; delegation to a local manager does not postpone knowledge either, since what your on-site representative knows, the company knows. Second, if the employee’s presence is dangerous — access to cash, to client data, to the stockroom — do not dismiss on the spot and do not let the employee empty the files during the procedure either: use the precautionary suspension, the mise à pied conservatoire. Article L1332-3 of the Labour Code allows it where the alleged acts made an immediate protective suspension indispensable, and it requires the full disciplinary procedure of article L1332-2 of the Labour Code to follow. The suspension is unpaid only if the dismissal for serious or gross misconduct is ultimately upheld; if you lose on the qualification, you will owe the back pay. Third, remember that old sanctions have an expiry date: article L1332-5 of the Labour Code states that “Aucune sanction antérieure de plus de trois ans à l’engagement des poursuites disciplinaires ne peut être invoquée à l’appui d’une nouvelle sanction.” A written warning from four years ago cannot support today’s dismissal, so build the file on recent, dated, provable facts. The administration’s overview of disciplinary time limits and protections is available on service-public.gouv.fr: disciplinary sanctions against private-sector employees.

II. Run a dismissal procedure the labour court will uphold

French dismissal procedure is a locked sequence: written notice of the grievances, summons to a preliminary meeting (entretien préalable), the meeting itself, then a reasoned notification letter. Each step carries its own minimum waiting period, and each period protects the employee’s right to prepare a defence. Miss one deadline or forget one mandatory sentence in the summons and the dismissal becomes procedurally irregular — which costs money even when the misconduct was real. Running the sequence from abroad is entirely possible, but it must be organised through a properly authorised local representative, because original signatures, registered letters and physical meetings cannot be improvised over a video call the day before.

A. Summons, preliminary meeting and notification: the three locked steps

Step one is the summons. Article L1232-2 of the Labour Code requires the employer contemplating dismissal to summon the employee to a preliminary meeting before any decision, by registered letter (lettre recommandée) or hand-delivered letter against receipt, stating the purpose of the meeting — and adds: “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.” Five full working days (jours ouvrables, Monday to Saturday excluding public holidays) between presentation of the letter and the meeting: count them on a calendar, because a meeting held one day early is a textbook procedural fault. Since 2017 the summons must also reproduce the exact statutory wording on assistance rights. Article L1232-4 of the Labour Code gives the employee the right to be assisted, at the hearing, by a person of his choice from the company’s staff — and where, as in most foreign-owned start-ups, there is no staff representative body (institutions représentatives du personnel), by an external employee adviser, the conseiller du salarié, chosen from an official list drawn up by the administration: “La lettre de convocation à l’entretien préalable adressée au salarié mentionne la possibilité de recourir à un conseiller du salarié et précise l’adresse des services dans lesquels la liste de ces conseillers est tenue à sa disposition.” The summons must therefore state that possibility and give the address of the services holding the list — typically the local labour inspectorate, the Dreets (regional directorate for employment and labour). An English-speaking founder should have the summons drafted or checked in French by counsel, because this is the document the labour court reads first.

Step two is the meeting. The employee may come with his chosen assistant; you — or more realistically your authorised manager or your lawyer with a written delegation (pouvoir) — state the contemplated sanction and collect the employee’s explanations. Hold the meeting even if the employee does not show up: an absent employee who was properly summoned loses the argument that he was never heard. Take dated notes, keep the delegation of authority with the file, and never announce the decision on the spot: the law imposes a cooling-off period. Step three is the 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.” It continues: “Cette lettre comporte l’énoncé du ou des motifs invoqués par l’employeur.” And it imposes the cooling-off period: “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.” In practice this means notification by registered letter with recorded delivery, posted no earlier than two full working days after the scheduled meeting date, setting out the employer’s reasons in precise, dated, factual terms. Since a 2017 reform the employer may use the official notification templates fixed by ministerial order, and may later clarify the stated reasons — at the employee’s request or on the employer’s own initiative — within fifteen days; but clarification can only detail what the letter already contains, never add new grievances.

Why does the letter matter so much? Because it freezes the dispute. The Nîmes Court of Appeal restated the rule on 23 June 2026 (CA Nîmes, 5th social chamber, RG 25/00999, official record of the Nîmes Court of Appeal ruling of 23 June 2026): “la lettre de licenciement fixe les limites du litige en ce qui concerne les griefs articulés à l’encontre du salarié” — the dismissal letter fixes the boundaries of the dispute as regards the grievances raised against the employee — citing Cass. soc., 23 October 2024, FS-B, no. 22-22.206, and adding that the judge must examine every grievance stated in the letter. The mirror image is equally strict: grievances absent from the letter cannot be raised later to save the dismissal. Draft the letter as if the labour court will read only it — because in substance, it will. List each fact with its date, its proof and its consequence; state expressly whether you retain minor misconduct, serious misconduct or gross misconduct and therefore whether notice and severance are due; sign through a person with written authority to dismiss. The administration’s step-by-step description of the personal-ground dismissal procedure is published on service-public.gouv.fr: dismissal procedure for personal reasons. If your French company was set up through one of the standard vehicles, the same discipline applies regardless of form — a reminder of the structural choices is available in our overview of choosing between a SAS, a SARL, a branch or a subsidiary when establishing a business in France.

B. After the letter: final settlement, mandatory papers and surviving a labour court challenge

Once the letter is posted, three obligations start immediately, and foreign employers discover them too often through a bailiff’s reminder. First, the final settlement (solde de tout compte): last wages, pro-rata of the thirteenth month or bonuses if the contract provides for them, compensation for unused paid leave (indemnité compensatrice de congés payés), plus — except in cases of serious or gross misconduct — the statutory or contractual severance and the notice compensation analysed above. Second, the mandatory end-of-contract papers: the work certificate (certificat de travail), the final settlement receipt and the France Travail certificate (formerly Pôle emploi attestation) that lets the former employee claim unemployment benefits. These must be handed over or sent without delay, and they must be exact: an inaccurate France Travail certificate is sanctioned separately. Third, the social declarations: the last DSN (nominative social declaration, the monthly payroll return to URSSAF, the social security collection agency) must reflect the departure, and any precautionary suspension period must be regularised according to the outcome — back pay if the serious-misconduct qualification fails.

Then comes the risk you must price from day one: a challenge before the conseil de prud’hommes. The employee has twelve months from notification to contest, and two kinds of defeat await the careless employer. A procedural irregularity — late summons, missing assistance wording, early notification — triggers a dedicated indemnity of up to one month’s wages, and it colours the judge’s reading of the whole file. A finding of no real and serious cause triggers the Macron scale: article L1235-3 of the Labour Code sets minimum and maximum awards in months of gross salary by seniority — for a first hire with less than one full year of service, up to one month in a company of eleven or more employees — and these damages come on top of the restored severance and notice pay. Conciliation remains possible at any stage: article L1235-1 of the Labour Code allows the parties to end the dispute by agreement before the conciliation board, and reminds the judge that “Si un doute subsiste, il profite au salarié” — any remaining doubt benefits the employee. Your exhibits must therefore leave no doubt: the summons with postal receipts, the delegation of signatory authority, the dated proofs of each fact, the meeting notes, the notification with its acknowledgement of receipt, the payroll records showing every sum paid.

Three practical defences make the difference for a founder defending from abroad. First, keep contesting within the letter’s perimeter consistent: counsel must plead all the stated grievances, because the court examines each of them, and must never introduce new ones that the letter omitted. Second, react fast to any parallel criminal track: if you filed a theft complaint, transmit the filing receipt to the labour file, since it both justifies the two-month computation and corroborates gravity. Third, consider settlement timing honestly: once the file shows a missed deadline or an inflated qualification, settling at conciliation for a fraction of the Macron-scale exposure is usually cheaper than funding a full hearing in Paris while flying in witnesses. The administration explains the remedies for an unfair or void dismissal on service-public.gouv.fr: dismissal without real and serious cause, void dismissal and remedies.

Conclusion

Dismissing your first French employee for misconduct from abroad is not harder than dismissing locally — it is simply unforgiving of improvisation. Qualify the fault at its true level, because inflated serious misconduct converts two saved months of wages into a full damages award. Prove the exact date you learned the facts, because the two-month rule of article L1332-4, as restated by the Court of Cassation on 15 October 2025, kills stale files and saves documented ones. Serve a summons with the five-day wait and the assistance wording, hold the meeting through a duly authorised representative, and post a reasoned letter after the two-day wait, because that letter alone will define the dispute before the labour court. Pay the final settlement and deliver exact end-of-contract papers, because post-dismissal faults are the easiest claims your former employee will ever win. Run this sequence once, with dated proof at every step, and the distance between your boardroom abroad and a Paris hearing room stops being a weakness: it becomes a file so orderly that no judge finds the doubt that would otherwise benefit the employee.