You have just received the letter every foreign employee in France dreads: an invitation to a preliminary meeting (entretien préalable) ahead of a possible dismissal on economic grounds (licenciement pour motif économique). You are British, you live and work in France after Brexit, and your first reflex may be to compare what is happening with redundancy back home. That reflex will mislead you. Since 1 January 2021 you have been a third-country national in France, your contract is governed by the French Labour Code (Code du travail), and only French rules decide whether your employer can lawfully end your job, what money you must receive, and how long you have to fight back. This guide walks you through the two questions that matter: is your dismissal genuinely an economic one, and how do you answer the procedure to protect your income and your deadlines? Every rule below is taken from provisions verified in force on the date of writing and from two published rulings of the Social Chamber of the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation, chambre sociale) from 2023 on the contract for professional security (contrat de sécurisation professionnelle, universally called the CSP).

I. “Made redundant” in France: is your dismissal really an economic one?

A. What counts as an economic dismissal when you work in France?

In Britain, redundancy centres on the job disappearing: the employer needs fewer workers, the role vanishes, and statute then sets notice and statutory redundancy pay by age and length of service, as the official gov.uk redundancy guide explains (gov.uk, Redundant: your rights). In France the logic is reversed. The judge does not start from your job; the judge starts from the employer’s economic reasons and asks whether they are real and serious (cause réelle et sérieuse). Article L1233-3 of the Labour Code defines an economic dismissal as “le licenciement effectué par un employeur pour un ou plusieurs motifs non inhérents à la personne du salarié”, that is, a dismissal for one or more reasons unrelated to you personally, resulting from the elimination or transformation of a post or from a change to an essential term of your contract which you have refused. So the first test is negative: if the true reason is your behaviour, your performance or your absence record, the dismissal is a personal one wearing an economic mask, and it falls outside this regime altogether.

The second test is positive: the reason unrelated to you must fit one of the statutory economic patterns. The same article lists, among other triggers, economic difficulties shown by a significant change in at least one economic indicator such as “une baisse des commandes ou du chiffre d’affaires, des pertes d’exploitation ou une dégradation de la trésorerie ou de l’excédent brut d’exploitation”, meaning a fall in orders or turnover, operating losses, or a deterioration in cash flow or gross operating surplus (article L1233-3). Technological change, a reorganisation needed to safeguard competitiveness, or the shutdown of the business can also qualify, but each must be demonstrated with documents, not asserted in a sentence. For a British employee this is the decisive practical point: your employer must prove the economics with figures covering your company, and where the company belongs to a group, the assessment may extend to the group’s sector of activity. A letter that says “the market is difficult” without orders, turnover, losses or cash-flow evidence behind it is exactly the kind of file an employment tribunal (conseil de prud’hommes, the labour court that hears dismissal disputes) picks apart. Ask for the figures at the preliminary meeting, note what is shown to you, and keep every payslip, bonus letter and organisation chart: they will matter if the file later goes to court.

Two traps catch British workers in particular. The first is the quiet re-labelling of a personal conflict as an economic dismissal because the employer believes the economic route looks cleaner. The order of analysis never changes: personal first, economic second. If your manager criticised your work for months and the “economic” letter arrives a week after a row about targets, say so in writing during the procedure; the tribunal will examine the true motive. The second trap is the modification of your contract dressed up as a dismissal. If your employer changes an essential term — pay, place of work, hours — and you refuse, the resulting dismissal can be an economic one under the same article, but only if the change itself was driven by genuine economic grounds and the employer followed the full procedure. A pay cut imposed “because times are hard”, refused, then punished by dismissal, is challengeable on both the ground and the method.

B. The reclassification duty: the job search your employer must run before letting you go

Even with genuine economic grounds, your employer cannot dismiss you until it has tried to keep you. Article L1233-4 of the Labour Code provides that an economic dismissal “ne peut intervenir que lorsque tous les efforts de formation et d’adaptation ont été réalisés et que le reclassement de l’intéressé ne peut être opéré sur les emplois disponibles, situés sur le territoire national”, meaning dismissal is lawful only once all training and adaptation efforts have been made and you cannot be reclassified into an available post. Three features of this duty surprise British readers. First, the search runs across the whole company and, where the company belongs to a group organised so that staff can move between its entities, across the other companies of that group. Second, since the 2017 reforms the search is limited to posts “situés sur le territoire national”, on French territory: your employer is not required to offer you a post in London, Manchester or anywhere else outside France, but every suitable French vacancy must be offered in writing, with precision. Third, the offers must be real, written and individual. A vague group email about “opportunities”, a list of posts already filled, or offers that omit pay, location, working time or the nature of the job do not satisfy the duty. French unions and employment lawyers currently litigate hard over the compulsory contents of these offers, and recent commentary on a CFDT analysis of the case law confirms that an offer missing mandatory details can doom the whole dismissal (analysed in a recent CFDT union briefing on reclassification offers).

In practice, therefore, your defence starts before any dismissal letter exists. From the preliminary meeting onwards, write down every reclassification proposal you receive, with its date, title, pay, location and hours, and answer each one in writing, even to refuse with reasons. If you receive nothing at all, note that too: the absence of any written, precise and individual offer is one of the strongest arguments before the tribunal. Check the official service-public.fr dismissal pages, which summarise the procedure and the documents the employer must hand over (service-public.fr, economic dismissal), and compare them with the competitor guides aimed at French employees, such as the detailed Juritravail analysis of economic dismissal grounds and procedure (see the detailed Juritravail guide to economic dismissal procedure). What those general guides rarely give you — and what this article adds — is the British-resident angle developed below: how the CSP interacts with your twelve-month challenge clock, how your severance is computed when part of your career sits in the United Kingdom, and why accepting or refusing the CSP changes the date from which every deadline runs.

Two procedural safeguards frame this whole phase, and both carry deadlines your employer must respect. Where the employer plans an individual economic dismissal, or a small collective dismissal of fewer than ten employees in thirty days, it must first invite you to a preliminary meeting by registered letter or hand-delivered letter stating its purpose, and article L1233-11 states that “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”, so the meeting cannot take place less than five working days after you receive the invitation. Then, once the employer has decided to dismiss, article L1233-15 provides that “Cette lettre ne peut être expédiée moins de sept jours ouvrables à compter de la date prévue de l’entretien préalable de licenciement auquel le salarié a été convoqué”, meaning the dismissal letter cannot be sent less than seven working days after the scheduled meeting date. Keep the envelopes and the delivery slips: if the meeting was held on day four or the letter posted on day six, the procedure is flawed, and that flaw has a price in court even where the economic grounds are genuine.

II. Answering the procedure: the CSP safety net, your money and your deadlines

A. Sign the CSP or work your notice? The choice that changes everything

At or after the preliminary meeting, your employer must offer you the contract for professional security, the CSP, unless the company is large enough to run an employment protection plan (plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi), in which case a different redeployment leave applies. Article L1233-66 makes the offer compulsory in companies outside the large-scale layoff regime, and if the employer fails to offer it, the public employment body itself offers it to you. The CSP is not a favour; article L1233-65 defines it as “l’organisation et le déroulement d’un parcours de retour à l’emploi, le cas échéant au moyen d’une reconversion ou d’une création ou reprise d’entreprise”, an organised path back to work, if needed through retraining or through setting up or taking over a business, with guidance, training and an allowance paid during the scheme. For a British worker weighing a return to the United Kingdom, retraining in France or launching a small business from your French home, the CSP keeps income flowing while you decide, which ordinary notice rarely does as comfortably.

But the CSP has a sharp legal edge that many employees discover too late: joining it ends your contract immediately. Article L1233-67 states that “L’adhésion du salarié au contrat de sécurisation professionnelle emporte rupture du contrat de travail”, so there is no notice period to work and no pay in lieu of notice on top; instead you keep the statutory and any contractual dismissal indemnities plus, where relevant, the balance of what the notice compensation would have been, after deduction of the employer’s contribution to the scheme. The same article then resets your challenge clock: “Toute contestation portant sur la rupture du contrat de travail ou son motif se prescrit par douze mois à compter de l’adhésion au contrat de sécurisation professionnelle”, meaning any dispute over the termination or its motive expires twelve months after you join the CSP, and “Ce délai n’est opposable au salarié que s’il en a été fait mention dans la proposition de contrat de sécurisation professionnelle”, so the employer can only hold that deadline against you if it was stated in the CSP offer itself (article L1233-67). Read the offer letter line by line, photograph the page that states — or fails to state — the twelve-month warning, and calendar the anniversary of your signature: that date, not the date of the dismissal letter, is the last day you can go to court.

Two published 2023 rulings of the Social Chamber show exactly how courts police the CSP paperwork, and both concerned employees whose written motive statements were attacked. In the first, decided 18 January 2023 (appeal no. 21-19.349, Cour de cassation, chambre sociale, 18 January 2023), the Court held that a termination through CSP acceptance “doit avoir une cause économique réelle et sérieuse” and that the employer must therefore state the economic cause in writing — in the compulsory CSP information document, or in the letter it must send where the reply period expires after the letter-sending deadline imposed by the dismissal provisions, or, where sending that letter first is impossible, “dans tout autre document écrit, porté à sa connaissance au plus tard au moment de son acceptation”, in any other written document brought to your attention no later than the moment you accept — adding the decisive sting: “A défaut, la rupture est dépourvue de cause réelle et sérieuse”, failing which the termination has no real and serious cause. If you joined the CSP on the strength of an oral explanation at the meeting, with the economics first put in writing days later, that ruling is your case.

In the second, decided 5 April 2023 (appeals nos. 21-18.636 and 21-18.637, Cour de cassation, chambre sociale, 5 April 2023), the Court confirmed that “la rupture du contrat de travail résultant de l’acceptation par le salarié d’un contrat de sécurisation professionnelle doit avoir une cause économique réelle et sérieuse” and that the employer must state the economic motive “dans un écrit remis ou adressé au salarié au cours de la procédure de licenciement et au plus tard au moment de son acceptation”, in a document handed or sent to you during the procedure and no later than your acceptance. It then added a practical second chance for employers — and a warning for employees: the information document “peut être précisé par l’employeur, soit à son initiative, soit à la demande du salarié, dans le délai de quinze jours suivant l’adhésion de ce dernier au dispositif”, it can be clarified by the employer, on its own initiative or at your request, within fifteen days of your joining. The lesson cuts both ways: if the motive statement looks thin, write immediately asking for clarification, because your request forces the employer onto the record within that fifteen-day window, and whatever it answers — or fails to answer — will frame the dispute.

B. Counting your severance and challenging the dismissal within twelve months

Refusing the CSP means you are dismissed in the classic way, with notice and a dismissal letter; accepting it means the contract ends at once with the scheme’s support. Either way, money follows the same floor. Article R1234-2 sets the statutory minimum at “Un quart de mois de salaire par année d’ancienneté pour les années jusqu’à dix ans”, a quarter of a month’s pay per year of service for the first ten years, and “Un tiers de mois de salaire par année d’ancienneté pour les années à partir de dix ans”, a third of a month’s pay per year beyond ten years, and article L1233-67 confirms the CSP route preserves this indemnity. The right itself opens early: article L1234-9 grants it to any employee on a permanent contract (contrat à durée indéterminée) dismissed with “8 mois d’ancienneté ininterrompus au service du même employeur”, eight months of unbroken service with the same employer, except for serious misconduct. Take a concrete example: six full years of service on a monthly gross reference salary of 3,500 euros gives a statutory floor of six quarters, or 5,250 euros, before any collective agreement top-up. Your collective agreement (convention collective), your contract and any company agreement very often pay more than the floor, sometimes much more, and the CSP calculation sheet must reflect them. British employees should check one more line with particular care: only service with the dismissing French employer counts toward seniority, so years spent with the same group’s London entity before an intra-group transfer to France do not automatically consolidate unless a transfer agreement or the contract says so. Ask human resources for the written seniority statement (relevé d’ancienneté) and reconcile it with your payslips before signing anything marked final, especially the end-of-contract receipt (solde de tout compte), which can only be denounced within six months and otherwise closes the sums it lists.

The dismissal letter itself deserves the same forensic attention, because it draws the boundaries of any future trial. Article L1233-16 requires that “La lettre de licenciement comporte l’énoncé des motifs économiques invoqués par l’employeur”, the letter must state the economic motives relied upon, and adds that it must mention the re-employment priority under the following article and how to use it. That priority is substantial: article L1233-45 provides that “Le salarié licencié pour motif économique bénéficie d’une priorité de réembauche durant un délai d’un an à compter de la date de rupture de son contrat s’il en fait la demande au cours de ce même délai”, so you enjoy a one-year priority for any suitable post that becomes available if you claim it in writing within that year. Write that claim the week you leave, keep proof of postage, and renew your attention each time the former employer advertises: a hire from outside while your priority stood can itself be sanctioned. And where the letter’s reasoning looks thin, article L1235-2 provides that “La lettre de licenciement, précisée le cas échéant par l’employeur, fixe les limites du litige en ce qui concerne les motifs de licenciement”, the letter, as clarified where applicable, fixes the limits of the dispute over the motives — which is why the fifteen-day clarification request described above is tactically precious: it locks the employer into a version of the story before memories shift.

If the dismissal was unjustified, the remedy follows a statutory scale that British readers find strikingly rigid next to the compensatory awards of an employment tribunal in London. Article L1235-3 provides that “Si l’une ou l’autre des parties refuse cette réintégration, le juge octroie au salarié une indemnité à la charge de l’employeur, dont le montant est compris entre les montants minimaux et maximaux fixés dans le tableau ci-dessous”, so where reinstatement is refused by either side, the judge awards compensation between the table’s monthly minimum and maximum by years of complete service — for example, at six years’ service the frame runs from three to eighteen months’ gross pay. Null dismissals (harassment, discrimination, breach of a protection) escape the scale, but an ordinary economic dismissal without real and serious cause stays inside it, which makes the quality of your evidence decisive rather than the size of your anger. Above all, watch the clock: article L1471-1 states that “Toute action portant sur la rupture du contrat de travail se prescrit par douze mois à compter de la notification de la rupture”, every claim over the termination expires twelve months after notice of the break — twelve months from the dismissal letter in the classic route, twelve months from joining where you accepted the CSP, as article L1233-67 confirms. File even a week late and the tribunal declares the claim out of time without ever examining the economics. Register promptly with France Travail (France Travail, the public employment service that pays unemployment benefits and runs the CSP), collect the employer’s end-of-contract documents — the employment certificate (certificat de travail), the final settlement (solde de tout compte) and the France Travail attestation — and note that losing your job does not by itself cancel a Withdrawal Agreement residence card: check the conditions attached to your own permit and keep proof of your job-seeking registration alongside it.

Conclusion

An economic dismissal in France is a procedure of proof, not a managerial announcement: the employer must demonstrate figures unrelated to you, search every suitable French post in writing, offer you the CSP where the law requires it, state the economic motive in a document you hold no later than your acceptance, observe the five-day and seven-day waiting periods, pay at least the statutory severance from eight months’ service, and warn you of your one-year re-employment priority. Your counter-procedure mirrors it step for step: demand the economics in writing, answer every reclassification offer on paper, request clarification of thin motives within fifteen days, verify the twelve-month warning in the CSP offer, compute the quarter-and-third severance against your agreement’s top-up, claim the re-employment priority in the first week, and file any tribunal claim inside the twelve months that run from your letter or your CSP signature. Handled that way, even a painful redundancy becomes a file you control — with the evidence, the arithmetic and the calendar all on your side.