Civil service lawyer in Paris: health, career and discipline.

A civil service lawyer acts on individual decisions that affect an employee's situation: placement on sick leave or refusal of long-term sick leave, refusal to recognise a service-related accident, compulsory unpaid leave, retirement on grounds of disability, transfer, appraisal report, refusal of confirmation in post, disciplinary sanction or removal from the register. What these cases have in common is that they are decided on precise provisions of the General Civil Service Code, then on the procedure followed by the employer.

The first task is to identify the act that really adversely affects the employee. A series of half-pay orders often flows from an initial refusal to recognise attributability to service; that refusal is what must be challenged first. The firm then checks the time limit: two months in principle, counted from notification (Article R. 421-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice), provided that the notification states the means of redress and time limits (Article R. 421-5).

The firm also examines the status of the person concerned. The sick leave rules of the Code apply to civil servants; a contract employee falls under separate regulatory texts that must be identified before any analysis. This page deals mainly with tenured civil servants and probationers.

Long-term sick leave is an entitlement for a serving civil servant where three conditions are met: the illness prevents them from performing their duties, it requires prolonged treatment and care, and it is disabling and of confirmed seriousness (Article L. 822-6 of the General Civil Service Code). Its maximum duration is three years (Article L. 822-7) and it may be taken continuously or in separate periods (Article L. 822-9).

The request rests on a certificate from the treating doctor, then on examination by the competent medical body. The Council of State recalls that the administration must obtain that opinion and then assess the request itself in the light of all the evidence, without being bound by the opinion given. In the same case, it held that it was for the employee, who was claiming compensation for the implied refusal of her leave, to establish the seriousness and disabling nature of her condition without lifting medical confidentiality; her appeal on points of law was rejected (CE, 30 April 2025, No. 472650).

Preparing the medical file therefore matters as much as the challenge itself. The firm checks the certificates produced, the effective date requested, the opinions given and the decision taken, before choosing between an informal administrative appeal, an action for annulment for excess of power and a prior compensation claim.

Pay depends on the leave granted, which is why classification matters. On ordinary sick leave, whose total duration may reach one year over twelve consecutive months (Article L. 822-2), the civil servant receives 90% of their salary for three months, then half for the following nine months (Article L. 822-3). This 90% rate applies to sick leave granted from 1 March 2025 (Article 189, V, of Law No. 2025-127 of 14 February 2025).

On long-term sick leave, the civil servant receives full pay for one year, then half for the following two years, keeping the family supplement and the residence allowance; the same article allows this share to be raised to 60% by decree (Article L. 822-8). For State civil servants, this 60% rate applies during the second and third years (Article 28-1 of Decree No. 86-442 of 14 March 1986). Extended sick leave covers five conditions listed by statute, including mental illness and cancer (Article L. 822-12); it gives entitlement to three years of full pay then two years of half pay (Article L. 822-15).

Where the incapacity results from an accident or an illness attributable to service, temporary disability leave attributable to service maintains full pay until the employee returns to work or retires (Article L. 822-22). An employee wrongly placed on ordinary sick leave can thus lose several months of half pay: the firm quantifies that difference before making the claim for back pay.

The Code sets out a presumption: any accident occurring at the time and place of service, in the performance of duties or of an activity that is a normal extension of them, is presumed attributable to service, in the absence of personal misconduct or a particular circumstance detaching it from service (Article L. 822-18). The Council of State defines an accident as any event occurring on a specific date that resulted in an injury.

In the case of a heart attack in the office of a school bursar, the court of appeal had required a direct and certain link with the service; the Council of State set that judgment aside, holding that a prior state of health is a particular circumstance only if it is the exclusive cause of the accident (CE, 18 July 2025, No. 476311). For a public highway enforcement officer who fell after feeling unwell on patrol, it held that starting the shift while feeling ill and allegations of taking medication not medically confirmed were not enough to rule out attributability; the municipality's refusal was annulled with final effect (CE, 9 October 2026, No. 498762).

The evidence therefore concerns the time, the place, the activity under way, the injuries and their link with the event, the Council of State accepting an injury whatever its date of onset. The employer, for its part, must establish the personal misconduct or exclusive cause it relies on.

An illness not listed in the occupational disease tables can be recognised as attributable to service where the civil servant establishes that it is essentially and directly caused by the performance of duties and that it results in permanent incapacity at a rate set by decree (Article L. 822-20). Anxiety and depressive disorders most often fall into this category, which places the burden of proof on the employee.

Under the former Article 57 of the Law of 26 January 1984, the Council of State held that an illness is attributable to service if it has a direct link with the performance of duties or with working conditions likely to give rise to it, unless there is personal conduct by the employee or another circumstance detaching it from service. This requirement works both ways. In a case where a local authority engineer had obtained recognition of their depressive syndrome on appeal, the judgment was set aside because the court had failed to examine whether the oppositional attitude attributed to the employee was established and was the determining cause of the deterioration of their working conditions (CE, 22 October 2021, No. 437254). This decision is unfavourable to the employee.

The file must therefore describe working conditions through dated documents, place any prior history and the aggravation attributable to service, and anticipate the argument of personal conduct. The firm compares the medical opinions, internal emails and management decisions before formulating the request.

Before any retirement, a civil servant found unfit for their duties must have their post adapted where possible (Article L. 826-1). Failing that, they may be redeployed to another corps or category of posts, as a priority within their own administration (Article L. 826-3), and they are entitled to a redeployment preparation period of up to one year, with pay maintained (Article L. 826-2).

For a local authority or hospital civil servant, retirement on grounds of disability requires a definitive and absolute inability to continue their duties, and compulsory retirement takes place only at the end of sick leave, long-term sick leave and extended sick leave, except for an illness of a definitive and stabilised nature that cannot be treated (Article 30 of Decree No. 2003-1306 of 26 December 2003). The Council of State holds that the court exercises full review of this assessment and may take into account documents drawn up after the decision, provided they shed light on the actual state of health at its date. In the case decided, an expert assessment ordered by the court had concluded that there was no disabling condition, and the annulment of the retirement was upheld (CE, 29 December 2021, No. 437489).

Once the procedure has begun, the employee may ask for disclosure of their medical file, produce the opinion of their own doctors and request an expert assessment. The firm also checks that redeployment was genuinely examined before the decision.

In the State civil service, the competent authority makes transfers taking account of the needs of the service (Article L. 512-18), and requests are examined giving priority to certain situations, such as joining a spouse or the abolition of a post (Article L. 512-19). An imposed transfer is distinct from the sanction of compulsory transfer, which belongs to the second group of the disciplinary scale.

A challenge meets two obstacles. The first concerns the nature of the act: a mere change of posting that affects neither statutory rights, nor fundamental rights and freedoms, nor responsibilities, nor pay is an internal organisational measure that can be challenged only if it reflects discrimination, whereas a substantial reduction of responsibilities makes it open to challenge (CE, 13 July 2021, No. 430522). The second concerns the court's review: in matters of transfer in the interest of the service, it sets aside the administration's assessment only in the event of manifest error.

The Council of State recalled this in annulling the suspension granted to a teacher transferred to a replacement zone, then rejecting the application for lack of established urgency: the transfer did not in itself have sufficient financial or personal consequences (CE, 28 July 2026, No. 512444). This decision is unfavourable to the employee. The file must therefore document precisely the loss of responsibilities, any disguised disciplinary motive and the concrete effects of the measure.

The assessment of a civil servant's professional merit is based on an individual evaluation giving rise to a report that is communicated to them (Article L. 521-1). This report weighs on promotion in grade, performance-related pay and mobility; it may be the subject of a request for review and then of a challenge before the administrative court.

The court's review nevertheless remains limited as to the substance of the assessment. In a case concerning a principal administrative officer of the Ministry of the Interior, the Council of State held that the interview had to be conducted by the direct line manager in post on the date of the interview, even if that manager had not supervised the employee throughout the year assessed. It left to the court of appeal the assessment that an insufficient number of files against the objectives, and abnormally long processing times, were not vitiated by manifest error; the employee's appeal on points of law was rejected (CE, 6 March 2025, No. 493924).

Challenging an appraisal therefore requires objective evidence: objectives set, resources available, actual workload, comparison with previous years. The firm first checks the competence of the assessor and the review procedure, then the consistency of the assessments with the documents.

Persons recruited by competitive examination or without one complete a probationary period known as the stage (Article L. 327-1). The probationer is in a provisional situation, and the refusal to confirm them in post rests on an assessment of their aptitude and of how they perform their duties.

The Council of State specifies the extent of review: the court checks that the decision is not based on materially inaccurate facts, that it is vitiated neither by an error of law nor by manifest error in assessing professional inadequacy, that it is not a disguised sanction and that it is not vitiated by misuse of power. If the grounds also relate to disciplinary misconduct, the person concerned must have been given the opportunity to submit observations. In the case decided, it added that facts predating the probationary period could justify the refusal, and set aside the judgment that had upheld the annulment obtained by a research officer (CE, 12 February 2025, No. 494075). This outcome is unfavourable to the probationer.

A challenge therefore requires disputing the facts themselves or showing that the decision in reality punishes conduct without adversarial procedure. The firm examines the probation reports, the interim appraisals and the observations submitted before the decision.

The scale of sanctions has four groups, from warning to dismissal (Article L. 533-1). Any sanction heavier than those of the first group requires the prior reasoned opinion of the body sitting as a disciplinary board, and the sanction itself states its reasons (Article L. 532-5). The employee subject to the procedure obtains their complete individual file and may be assisted by the defenders of their choice (Article L. 532-4).

Where grounds to that effect are raised, the court checks three points in turn: whether the facts occurred, whether they amount to misconduct and whether the sanction is proportionate to the seriousness of the misconduct. The Council of State recalls this, while limiting its own review as cassation judge: proportionality is a matter for the courts that decide the facts, unless the outcome is out of proportion to the misconduct. In the case of a care assistant dismissed for twenty-six days of concealed absence during training, the court of appeal had rejected the complaint of abandonment of post but upheld the misconduct, and the employee's appeal on points of law was rejected (CE, 13 December 2022, No. 452262).

The stakes therefore lie before the administrative court and the administrative court of appeal. The firm answers each complaint in turn, distinguishes established facts from mere allegations, and gathers the evidence of context, seniority and conduct in service that allows proportionality to be argued.

The General Civil Service Code confines disciplinary action to a period of three years. The employer must start the procedure within three years of the day on which it actually learned of the facts liable to a sanction, in their reality, nature and extent. The bringing of criminal proceedings against the civil servant stops that period running until the final criminal decision. These rules appear in Article L. 532-2, in force on 1 November 2026.

The Council of State clarified how this is calculated in a decision published in its reports. The period is measured between the actual knowledge of the facts and the date on which the employee is properly notified that the procedure has been started. A final criminal decision means one that has become irrevocable, and the period starts again for three years from that date, whatever date the administration is informed of it, unless it had until then known nothing of the facts. In the case decided, the information that proceedings had been started, received by the teacher after the deadline, was late, and the annulment of the sanction was upheld (CE, 24 June 2025, No. 476387).

The firm therefore reconstructs what the administration knew, since when, and on what exact date the letter starting the procedure was received.

No. The Code lists abandonment of post among the cases in which a civil servant may be dismissed (Article L. 553-1), but removal from the register requires prior formal notice. The Council of State requires a written document, notified to the employee, which sets a time limit for resuming duty and informs them of the risk of removal from the register without disciplinary procedure.

It adds a second condition drawn from the statute: every serving civil servant is entitled to receive, within a reasonable time, a posting corresponding to their grade. An employee whose post was abolished in a reorganisation and who has received no new posting cannot be regarded as having broken the link with the service of their own accord. The decree removing a chief engineer from the register was annulled on that ground, with an injunction to reinstate them and assign them to a post of their grade (CE, 11 October 2023, No. 464419).

Where the absence is explained by sick leave, the situation must be examined with the certificates sent and any follow-up medical examinations. The firm checks the formal notice, its content, its date of receipt and the employee's posting situation on that date.

The two-month time limit can be enforced against the employee only if the notification states the means of redress and time limits (Article R. 421-5 of the Code of Administrative Justice). This omission does not, however, leave an unlimited period. The Council of State holds that the principle of legal certainty precludes the indefinite challenge of an individual decision that has been notified or is known: the challenge must then be brought within a reasonable time which, save in particular circumstances, does not exceed one year after notification of the decision or the date on which the employee became definitely aware of it.

Applying this rule to a public employee can be severe. In the case decided, a tax inspector had applied to the court only in June 2014, more than two and a half years after becoming aware of appointment and regrading orders notified in 2011; his claim had been rejected as out of time, and his appeal on points of law was rejected (CE, 10 February 2020, No. 429343). This decision is unfavourable to the employee.

An administrative appeal lodged within the time limit interrupts the time limit for court proceedings (Article L. 411-2 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration). The firm therefore dates each act, checks its notification and looks for any time remaining before costs are incurred.

The urgent applications judge may suspend a decision where urgency justifies it and a ground raises serious doubt as to its lawfulness (Article L. 521-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice). The request accompanies a main application, because the suspension ends at the latest when the court rules on that application.

For an employee deprived of pay, the Council of State sets a useful presumption: a measure that deprives a public employee of all their remuneration for more than one month in principle causes serious and immediate harm to their situation, unless the employer justifies particular circumstances. It annulled the order that had required the employee to prove an upheaval in their living conditions, then suspended a temporary exclusion of two years, one year of it as a suspended term, imposed by a département (CE, 18 December 2024, No. 492519).

This presumption does not apply to every measure: a transfer with no financial effect of its own does not, by itself, establish urgency. The firm therefore quantifies the loss of pay, gathers proof of resources and at the same time prepares the strongest ground of lawfulness.