👀 We love being sure that there is a reference hidden somewhere to answer every question. Maybe we are scared of blind spots?
🍰 Try to visualise a carrot cake or even better a French pastry: "milles feuilles". Do you get it?
Each layer is a specific layer of rules. I will present the 3 mains layers from bottom to top:
- 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞: This is the foundation, the French bible where you will find most of the rules that apply to all French companies. A few thousand references!
- 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐋𝐀 𝐨𝐫 𝐂𝐁𝐀: nobody knows how many we have. Probably between 600 and 700! Those are specific rules negotiated by trade unions at a sector level (banking, insurance, car industry, etc.).
- 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: Here we are talking about the decision you will take as a company. Indeed, without knowing when you will answer someone's question, you will start putting in place your own rules which, sometimes, may differ from the law.
Then we have our various courts, including the Supreme one (”Cour de cassation”), which make decisions every day to interpret the rules. We are talking about thousands of court decisions which form a very important part of the French employment law rules.
Believe me, if I could have made the rules simpler I would have done so, and just enjoyed a tasty millefeuille 🥄
