In a ruling dated November 13, 2025, the French Supreme Court determined that when an employee is hired under a fixed-term replacement contract, the employer must inform the new employee of the dismissal of the employee they have replaced.  Failure to provide such notification results in the fixed-term employment contract being reclassified as a permanent contract, with significant financial consequences for the employer.

A look back at the facts of the case:

  • An employee was hired on a fixed-term contract on August 13, 2015, to replace another employee.
  • On September 23, 2015, the employee suffered an accident at work, which led to the suspension of his employment contract;
  • On July 25, 2017, the original replaced employee was dismissed;
  • On March 11, 2019, the replacement employee was declared unfit for work by the occupational health services;
  • On October 30, 2019, he lodged a claim for constructive dismissal;
  • On January 25, 2020, the employer provided him with his end-of-contract documents.

Reminder of the applicable rules:

According to the French employment code, a fixed-term employment contract may not have a specific term when it is entered into to replace an employee who is temporarily absent. Such a fixed-term employment contract will be entered into for a minimum period and terminated when the period of absence of the person who is being replaced ends.

Where a fixed-term contract is entered into without a specific term, the employer is required to
provide proof of the event constituting the end of the contract and its date.

The occurrence of an accident at work that has led to the suspension of the fixed-term contract does not prevent that fixed-term contract from expiring.

The decision:

In this ruling, the employer argued that the dismissal of the replaced employee in 2017 automatically resulted in the termination of the fixed-term contract concluded to replace the original absent employee and that only in the situation where the employee continues to work beyond the term could the employee claim a permanent contract.  In this case the replacement employee was on sick leave at that time and therefore was not continuing to work beyond that term.

However, the French Supreme Court adopted a much stricter position. While recognizing the definitive nature of the termination of the replaced employee’s employment contract on July 25, 2017 (the date of the replaced employee’s dismissal), the Court held that the employer had failed to inform the employee (whose employment contract had been suspended due to a work-related accident) of the termination of the replaced employee’s employment for more than two years and had not provided him with the end-of-contract documents before January 25, 2020. It therefore concluded that the employer had retained the employee under an employment contract that had continued to run after the fixed-term contract had ended and therefore reclassified the relationship as a permanent employment contract. The Court also considered that as a result of the constructive dismissal claim, the termination of the contract had to be considered as an unfair dismissal.

The consequences were severe for the employer, who was ordered to pay the employee back pay for the period after he was declared unfit for work, as well as compensation in lieu of notice, paid leave, and damages for unfair dismissal.

This ruling clearly shows that even when certain situations seem obvious — in this case, the replacement employee could no longer work and the replaced employee had been dismissed — the employer must still ensure that it scrupulously complies with its obligations and, in this case, should have informed the employee of the dismissal of the replaced employee.