Failure to reinstate an employee upon her return from parental leave in her initial position or a similar position with equivalent remuneration can constitute indirect gender discrimination.

Both the French Supreme Court and the Versailles Court of Appeal held that an employer, who must ensure that liberties and fundamental rights of each employee are respected in the working community, may lawfully prohibit the wearing of any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious beliefs in the workplace, provided that the rule contained in the company rules and regulations applies without distinction to employees in direct contact with the customers of the company only. But in the absence of such rules, sanctioning an employee who refuses to remove her Islamic veil based on the wish of a customer, which does not qualify as a genuine and determining occupational requirement, amounts to an unlawful direct discrimination and should consequently be held null and void.

A mobility clause must be sufficiently precise, but this condition can still be fulfilled even if the clause tries to cover both current and possible future locations of the company, provided any future locations are still within France and provided any change of location is justified by the needs of the business.

Company agreement provisions granting a half-day of leave to female employees on International Women’s Day constitute lawful positive discrimination in favour of women.

A pregnant employee with no valid work permit in France does not benefit from protective legal provisions forbidding or restraining her termination.

An employee who could not prove any harm resulting from an invalid non-compete clause in his employment contract could not obtain damages.

The French state was held liable by the Administrative Court of Clermont-Ferrand for failing to transpose Article 7§1 of EU Directive 2003/88/EC on working time.