Background
M. [A] was hired as a general operative by Phen’x Technologies SAS on 9 November 2015. He was placed on certified sick leave from 29 May to 15 June 2018, and again from 2 July to 21 December 2018. During those periods of suspension, his employer made repeated proposals for a rupture conventionnelle — France’s consensual termination procedure under Article L. 1237-11 of the Labour Code — which the employee did not accept. He was ultimately dismissed on 29 November 2018 on the ground that his prolonged absence was disrupting the proper functioning of his department and made his permanent replacement necessary.
M. [A] brought proceedings before the employment tribunal (conseil de prud’hommes) on 21 March 2019, claiming damages for a void dismissal (nullity on grounds of discrimination), and in the alternative for dismissal without real and serious cause, as well as for disloyal performance of the employment contract and breach of the employer’s health-and-safety obligation.
The Lyon Court of Appeal (Social Chamber A), by judgment of 5 February 2025, declared the dismissal null and void on the basis of health-status discrimination. It held that the employer’s repeated conventional-termination offers made during the sick-leave period, followed by the dismissal for prolonged absence, together raised a presumption of discrimination linked to the employee’s state of health, and that the employer had failed to rebut that presumption with objective, discrimination-free justification. The court ordered Phen’x Technologies to pay M. [A] €17,000 in compensation for the void dismissal and to reimburse up to six months of unemployment benefits paid by Pôle emploi (now France Travail). Phen’x Technologies appealed to the Court of Cassation.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Cassation partially quashed the Lyon appeal judgment. Applying Articles L. 1132-1 and L. 1134-1 of the Labour Code, the Court reiterated the standard framework: where an employee puts forward several factual elements which, taken together, suggest direct or indirect discrimination, it falls to the judge to assess whether those elements collectively raise a presumption of discrimination; if so, the burden shifts to the employer to prove that its decisions were justified by objective factors unrelated to any discrimination.
On the critical issue, the Court held that a proposal by an employer to conclude a rupture conventionnelle during a period when the employee’s contract is suspended due to sick leave does not, in itself, constitute a material fact capable of raising a presumption of health-status discrimination. The Court noted that, absent fraud or a defect in consent, a conventional termination may validly be agreed during such a suspension period. By using the conventional-termination proposals as one of the building blocks of the discrimination presumption, the Lyon court had misapplied the statutory provisions and its judgment was accordingly quashed on that point.
The case was remitted on the nullity, the €17,000 compensation award, and the France Travail reimbursement order to the Grenoble Court of Appeal for fresh determination. The first, second, and third grounds of the employer’s appeal were dismissed without specific reasoning as manifestly incapable of leading to cassation. Costs were awarded against M. [A]; the employer’s request under Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure (litigation costs contribution) was refused.
Key Takeaways
- A rupture conventionnelle offer made while an employee is on sick leave is not, standing alone, evidence of health-status discrimination — it is a lawful act expressly permitted by French labour law in the absence of fraud or vitiated consent.
- Courts of appeal cannot build a discrimination presumption primarily or exclusively on the fact that an employer proposed consensual termination during a sick-leave suspension; additional, independent factual indicators are required to satisfy the Article L. 1134-1 threshold.
- Once a discrimination presumption is properly established, the burden remains on the employer to supply objective, discrimination-free reasons; but that burden-shift is only triggered by legally sufficient factual material — a conventional-termination offer does not by itself supply that material.
- Dismissal for prolonged absence disrupting business operations can still be challenged as discriminatory, but claimants must point to elements beyond the employer’s use of the consensual-termination procedure to raise the statutory presumption.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies an important boundary in French anti-discrimination law. The rupture conventionnelle is widely used by French employers, and its deployment during an employee’s illness had become a contested litigation flashpoint — with some lower courts treating repeated offers during sick leave as inherently suspect. The Court of Cassation has now authoritatively ruled that such offers carry no automatic discriminatory taint, reinforcing that the mechanism remains available during contract suspension and cannot, without more, anchor a nullity claim under the health-status discrimination provisions of the Labour Code.
For practitioners advising employers, the ruling provides useful clarification: offering a consensual exit to an employee on sick leave is not legally self-incriminating. For employees and their counsel, the case underscores that a discrimination claim premised solely or primarily on a rupture conventionnelle approach during illness is unlikely to survive cassation review — a stronger set of converging factual indicators will be needed. The Grenoble Court of Appeal will now reconsider whether any remaining elements of the record, stripped of the conventional-termination offers as a presumption-building factor, can sustain a finding of nullity.