The Cour de cassation, France’s highest judicial authority, released a sweeping set of rulings on July 8, 2026, touching on everything from the cost of expert witnesses in workplace disputes to what actually constitutes a legal strike. The decisions, spanning multiple chambers of the court, give employers and workers alike a clearer picture of their rights and obligations.
One of the more consequential rulings involves the AGS, France’s state-backed wage guarantee scheme. In the case of MDRH, the court confirmed that the guarantee extends to claims arising from a judicial termination of an employment contract. That protection applies even when the termination stems from the employer’s own breaches of duty, aligning French practice with EU Directive 2008/94/EG and a February 22, 2024 ruling from the European Court of Justice.
The court also drew a bright line on jurisdiction in workplace injury cases. In the Pharmacie Kreutter matter, it held that compensation questions tied to occupational accidents belong exclusively to the social security courts. No other judicial body has the authority to hear such claims.
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Employer Pushback on Expert Reports Gets a Green Light, With Limits
On the subject of workplace consultation, the social chamber addressed the so-called “economic alarm” procedure — a mechanism that lets employee representatives flag financial distress and commission expert assessments. In the Pacyl 2 case against the CSE works council and the firm Acecom, the court ruled that employers may challenge the necessity, selection and cost of an expert report. What they cannot do, however, is attack the regularity of the alarm procedure itself.
A related decision involving Acecom clarified that an employer may sue an auditor directly, provided there is a legitimate legal interest. The court also found that the president of the Tribunal judiciaire de Créteil had overstepped his authority by annulling a resolution from August 7, 2024 that triggered the economic alarm in the first place.
Union rights also came under scrutiny. The court dismissed an appeal from the Sud commerces et services Ile-de-France union against a December 2024 Paris appeals court ruling. At issue was a company agreement from July 17, 2018 that set aside a 10,000-euro budget per representative organisation. The court held that a union that is not representative at the company level has no right to be consulted on the use of notice boards.
Dismissal Rules Tightened Around Strike Legitimacy
The rulings also clarified when a work stoppage counts as a strike — and when it does not. In the Calorifloat case, the court upheld the dismissal of an employee for gross misconduct after a June 2020 work stoppage. Because no professional demands had been communicated to the employer beforehand, the stoppage could not be classified as a strike, making the dismissal lawful.
A separate decision in the Decathlon case corrected an earlier ruling on unemployment benefit reimbursement. Since the dismissal was based on a real and serious ground, the court said, ordering such a reimbursement was improper. The court also flagged errors in how documents related to 2018 overtime hours had been weighed.
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Procedural Boundaries and Bargaining Obligations
In a procedural ruling against Cabinet Cotessat-Buisson, the social chamber underscored the strict separation between admissibility and merits. A judge who declares a claim inadmissible cannot then go on to rule on the substance of the case — a violation of the Code de procédure civile. The Reims appeals court had crossed that line when it issued a substantive ruling after declaring a settlement protocol from November 23, 2018 inadmissible.
The court also weighed in on collective bargaining in the non-profit health and social sector. It ruled that the CFTC and CFE-CGC federations must be invited to negotiations on the unified extended collective agreement, given their representative status.
Finally, the commercial chamber addressed contractual time limits. A simple reminder letter, it said, is not enough to interrupt an agreed three-month exclusion period — a point settled in the Axa case against With Up Com. The court further clarified that claims for damages over wrongful refusal to pay require proof of harm that goes beyond mere late payment.
