Overview

• The Cour de cassation ruled that employees who fall ill during paid vacation can have those paid leave days recredited if they notify their employer with a sick note.
• In a separate decision, the court said paid leave must be included when calculating overtime for workers on hourly accounting.
• The court presented both changes as applications of EU jurisprudence on working time following the European Commission’s June infringement procedure against France.
• Employer groups including CPME and Medef criticized the decisions as costly and called on the new prime minister to push for changes at EU level and in French law.
• Lawyers note the rulings apply immediately as jurisprudence but may require Labour Code transposition or prud’hommes cases to clarify implementation.