Are workplace affairs a sackable offence in France?

The recent media storm over the US colleagues caught having an affair on kiss cam at a Coldplay concert in Boston has shone a spotlight on how workplace relationships are handled. 

The couple at the centre of the scandal, Andy Byron, CEO of data company Astronomer, and the company’s HR director, Kristin Cabot, subsequently resigned. 

“Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,” read a statement from Astronomer announcing that the board of directors had accepted Byron’s resignation.

Would this happen in France?

“If he held his position as a corporate officer, without a CDI or CDD work contract, then the board could sack him immediately because in that case they do not have to give any reasons,” lawyer Justine Godey of La Garanderie Avocats told The Connexion. 

“But in France most chief executives have CDI contracts.”

With a salaried employee, the company has to take into consideration Article Nine of the Code civil, which states that everyone has a right to a private life. 

This is backed up by Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that everyone has a right to a private and family life, to privacy in the home and in their communications.

Courts have held a broad interpretation of what constitutes ‘private life’.

In a recent case, which went all the way to the Cour de cassation, an employee sacked for smoking through a hookah (shisha) in a cruise ship cabin paid for by his employers, having first blocked the smoke detector, won his claim for unlawful dismissal. 

Judges ruled that his actions related to his private life and not work.

In another case, an employee sacked by her managing director for having an intimate relationship with the president of that firm (who happened to be the MD’s husband), was also found to have been wrongly dismissed.

Maître Godey said there are two exceptions: if private lives impact on obligations laid down in a work contract, or if private lives have an objectively and measurably negative effect on the company.

Using these exceptions, an HR director sacked for having an intimate relationship with an employee, who happened to be a union representative, lost his case for unlawful dismissal. 

Judges ruled that the relationship could directly affect his job representing the company in union negotiations, part of his contract, even though the firm could produce no evidence that it had.

And the dismissal of a worker who provoked a strike by colleagues when he returned to his job following a prison sentence for sexual offences against minors was deemed legal.

Judges ruled that his presence had an obvious negative effect on the business - the strike of his colleagues.

'Rare in France'

“If, in the case of the Coldplay couple, the company could show that sales had fallen in the month after the kiss cam incident, then they might have a case in France for dismissing the CEO,” said Maître Godey. 

“However, it is likely he would be able to argue successfully that the worldwide publicity was actually a benefit to the firm.”

Her advice to any Connexion readers who become aware their employees are in an intimate relationship is not to get involved – unless they have objective proof it is causing harm to the company.

She added that in spite of France’s reputation for extra-marital affairs, it was very rare for employment lawyers to deal with such cases.