In a decision issued on October 23, 2024, the French Supreme Court held a redeployment offer to be insufficiently detailed for it did not include all the mentions listed in Article D.1233-2-1 of the French Labor Code. The Court considers that failing to set out any one of the mentions provided in the French Labor Code amounts to a breach to the employer’s internal redeployment obligation. As a consequence, the employee’s redundancy must be considered unfair.
Under French law, redeployment offers must include the following details: the job title and description, the employer’s name, the nature of the employment contract, the location, the level of compensation and the job classification (Article D. 1233-2-1, II, of the French Labor Code).
In the case at hand, for the implementation of a restructuring, the employer had put to an employee whose position was to be eliminated an internal redeployment offer that was only referring to “a position as a warehouse worker in Onet le Château (12), your lmength of service being carried over and with a compensation of the same level”. The employee challenged the validity of her redundancy, arguing that the redeployment offer was insufficiently detailed due to the lack of some the details required by the French Labor Code.
The Pau Court of Appeal ruled in the employee’s favor, stressing that the redeployment offer did not mention the company’s name, address, activity, nor the job classification applicable. It considered that the mere mention of “the same level of remuneration” was insufficient for the employee to give a reasoned answer to the offer.
Upon appeal from the employer, the French Supreme Court upheld the Court of appeal’s position. It held that “in the absence of any of these mentions [those required by Article D. 1233-2-1, II of the French Labor Code], the offer is deemed imprecise, which constitutes a breach to the employer’s redeployment obligation and deprives the dismissal of real and serious cause.”