The “forfait jours” is a French working time arrangement under which an employee’s working time is calculated in days over the year rather than in hours. It applies mainly to employees with a wide autonomy and allows for greater flexibility. This system requires both a collective bargaining agreement authorising its use and an individual agreement signed with the employee.
In a ruling dated May 6, 2025, the French Supreme Court reaffirmed a key principle regarding the validity of individual “forfait jours” (working-time-in-days) agreements: when the collective bargaining agreement underpinning the arrangement is revised, a new individual agreement must be signed with the employee.
In this case, a regional sales manager had signed a “forfait jours” agreement in March 2013, based on a 1999 collective agreement. A month later, the employer revised the collective bargaining agreement to comply with case law on workload monitoring but the employee did not sign a new individual agreement. The employee subsequently claimed unpaid overtime, arguing that the absence of a new individual agreement rendered the original forfait jours arrangement invalid.
The French Supreme Court ruled in the employee’s favour, holding that without a new individual agreement, the original arrangement remained subject to outdated collective provisions and was therefore null and void. The employer could not rely on the revised collective agreement without formal consent from the employee through a new contract or amendment.
This decision is consistent with previous case law and confirms that employers cannot retroactively apply revised collective terms to existing “forfait jours” agreements without securing the employee’s individual agreement. The purpose of this requirement is to ensure that employees benefit from enhanced safeguards introduced by the updated collective provisions—particularly those related to workload management, working time limits, and rest periods.
In practice, this means that any revision of a collective agreement – even shortly after an individual “forfait jours” agreement is signed – requires the employee’s formal acceptance via a new individual agreement. Failing to do so may expose the employer to liability for overtime payments and breaches of working-time rules.
Although this ruling concerned an individual agreement signed in 2013 and a collective agreement revised prior to the 2016 legal reform, it remains uncertain whether the same principle would apply to revisions made after 2016. However, given the Court’s consistent reasoning, employers should exercise caution and ensure proper formalisation in all cases by asking all employees to sign new individual agreements whenever the collective bargaining agreement is revised.
You can read the decision here : https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/juri/id/JURITEXT000051581925