Your French customer operates through the weekend and wants your employees on site whenever production needs them. Access is available, the customer’s own shifts are organised and the contract allows for Sunday work. Your company still needs to establish the basis on which it can employ its own team during those hours.
Two industrial arrangements can be relevant: continuous work with weekly rest allocated by rotation, and a dedicated relief team that replaces another group during its rest days. They have different purposes, conditions and consequences for staffing and pay. Choosing the right arrangement before agreeing the rota can prevent a programme built around permissions that do not cover the contractor’s employees.
This guide concerns adult employees and the general rules for industrial businesses, including foreign employers posting employees to France. Working time and rest protections apply to posted employees under L.1262-4. Special occupational rules and the local Alsace-Moselle framework require examination where relevant. L.3134-1 expressly retains the industrial provisions L.3132-14 to L.3132-19 within that local framework.
Identify what your workforce will actually do
Continuous work concerns the organisation of industrial activity across successive shifts, with employees taking weekly rest by rotation. Under L.3132-14, the agreement route permits continuous work for economic reasons in industries or industrial businesses. It is not a general permission to extend any service visit because the customer’s premises stay open.
A relief team, or équipe de suppléance, has a more specific function. L.3132-16 describes operating staff divided into two groups: the relief group’s sole function is to replace the other group during its day or days of rest. The relief employees take their weekly rest on a day other than Sunday. The derogation also covers personnel needed to supervise that team.
A second team helping the first finish an installation faster is not necessarily a relief team in this sense. Nor does calling a group the “weekend team” establish the legal arrangement. Identify who is being replaced, when that group rests, and which employees perform the replacement work.
Check the agreement that covers the employer and the activity
For continuous work, L.3132-14 provides for a company or establishment collective agreement or, failing that, an extended sector agreement. For relief teams, L.3132-16 likewise provides an agreement route at company or establishment level or, failing that, an extended collective agreement.
Obtain the provision itself and examine its scope, implementation conditions and the workforce covered. A clause about overtime payment or access to the factory is not necessarily an agreement organising continuous work or relief teams. For an overseas contractor, identify the applicable French provisions and the effect of any employer agreement; do not simply adopt the customer’s internal rota as the contractor’s legal basis.
Relief-team agreements must also address training arrangements and remuneration of training time, together with how employees exercise their right to take a job outside relief work. These are express requirements of L.3132-17. They matter when designing the organisation, not only after the weekend team has started.
Without the relevant agreement, prepare an inspector’s application
The absence of an agreement does not make either arrangement freely available. L.3132-14 provides an inspector’s derogation route for continuous work; L.3132-18 makes relief teams subject to the inspector’s authorisation in the absence of an agreement. The applicable consultation includes trade-union delegates and the opinion of the social and economic committee, the CSE, where it exists.
The regulatory conditions are substantive. For continuous work, R.3132-9 requires the organisation to promote better use of production equipment and maintain or increase existing employment. R.3132-10 sets the same objectives for the administrative relief-team route. A customer asking for weekend attendance is not, by itself, a demonstration that these conditions are met.
The employer sends the application, with the necessary justifications and consultation opinions, to the labour inspector. R.3132-13 provides for the inspector to notify the employer and employee representatives of the decision within 30 days of receipt.
Allow additional time to establish the organisation, prepare the supporting material and complete consultation. For a foreign employer, clarify the actual employee-representation situation and the competent territorial contact. Before relying on an absence of response, establish the applicable silence regime, receipt, completeness and evidence of the decision. An unanswered informal email is not a sufficient basis for deploying the team.
Keep the special working-time rules in the calculation
Continuous operation does not mean that every employee works continuously. L.3132-15 specifically limits employees permanently working in successive teams on a continuous cycle to an average of 35 hours per week worked over a year. Preserve that scope and method: it is not a statement that every short industrial intervention has an identical annual calculation, or that the ordinary overtime reference resolves the continuous-cycle rule.
Relief teams have their own daily provisions under R.3132-11:
| Period during which the relief teams are used | Daily working-time provision |
|---|---|
| No more than 48 consecutive hours | Daily work may reach 12 hours |
| More than 48 consecutive hours | Daily work must not exceed 10 hours |
Those 48 hours describe the consecutive period of use, not a total of 48 hours of actual work per employee. Extending a weekend arrangement into an adjoining day can therefore change the analysis even if the employee’s weekly total remains modest.
Do not use the table alone as permission for a 12-hour day. R.3132-12 expressly directs employers using relief teams under a company or establishment agreement to seek the inspector’s authorisation to exceed 10 hours daily. Examine the arrangement’s basis and any required daily authorisation before confirming the shifts.
Night work must be assessed alongside this organisation. L.3122-6 expressly recognises the relief-team provisions as an exception to the ordinary eight-hour daily ceiling for night workers; it does not dispense with the rest of the applicable night-work rules. See the guide to night work in France.
Price relief work using the applicable pay basis
L.3132-19 requires relief-team employees’ remuneration to be increased by at least 50% compared with the pay due for equivalent working time under the company’s normal schedule. The article excludes that increase when relief-team employees replace employees on leave during the week.
This is a specific relief-team rule, not a universal premium for all Sunday work or continuous industrial shifts. Determine the equivalent normal-schedule remuneration, the applicable agreement and any other entitlements before pricing the assignment. Do not assume that one percentage settles overtime, night-work compensation and all contractual premiums.
As a simple arithmetic illustration, if the relevant equivalent remuneration is €400, a 50% increase produces €600. That calculation does not establish the correct underlying remuneration or resolve other amounts due. The staffing budget must also account for supervision, training and the replacement coverage needed when each group rests.
Test the proposed weekend against the whole rota
Suppose an industrial employer proposes a separate group to replace its regular operating group during that group’s Saturday and Sunday rest. The proposed relief hours are 06:00–17:00 each day, with a genuine one-hour non-working break on each shift.
That is 10 hours of actual work per day, 20 hours in total, and 13 hours between Saturday’s finish and Sunday’s start. The period from Saturday at 06:00 to Sunday at 17:00 spans 35 hours. The elapsed period and the employee’s actual working time are different figures.
This example illustrates the questions to resolve; it is not a finding that the employer qualifies for relief-team authorisation. Check the industrial scope, the genuine replacement function, the agreement or authorisation, weekly rest elsewhere and any work assigned before or after the weekend. Adding Friday or Monday is a change to assess, not merely another paid shift.
Weekly rest is normally 24 consecutive hours plus daily rest under L.3132-2; daily rest is ordinarily 11 consecutive hours, subject to the applicable exceptions, under L.3131-1. Moving rest away from Sunday does not eliminate it. The separate weekly-hours checks also remain relevant; an arrangement for Sunday rest is not an authorisation to exceed 48 hours in one week.
Choose another route when the proposed organisation does not fit
If the contractor is simply carrying out a short Sunday maintenance job, assess the Sunday-rest basis appropriate to that activity. The permanent activity-based exceptions under L.3132-12 and a prefectural application under L.3132-20 are distinct routes with their own conditions; they are not interchangeable with the industrial arrangements above.
A workable alternative may be to move part of the work into ordinary operating days, change the sequence or reduce the coverage promised. Sending different employees can solve a staffing problem, but does not itself create a Sunday-work entitlement. Use the guide to Sunday work on a French worksite to identify the relevant starting point.
Prepare the employer’s file before fixing mobilisation
A useful preparation pack connects the proposed organisation to its legal basis:
- Employer and activity: legal employer, industrial activity, French sites, work concerned and authorised signatory.
- Organisation: normal and proposed rotas, groups and supervisors, replacement periods, rest days and dates of use.
- Basis and justification: relevant agreement or proposed administrative route, equipment use, employment effects and supporting operational facts.
- Working conditions: actual daily and weekly hours, relevant averages, breaks, rest, pay calculation and applicable training arrangements.
- Consultation and evidence: required opinions, submission, receipt, correspondence and the decision and conditions relied upon.
This is a practical preparation framework, not a universal official form. Read the scope, dates and conditions of the actual agreement or decision; do not assume a standard validity period or extend it automatically to another site or employer.
Discuss the coverage your French project needs
Tell ALTALEO what the team will do, where and when, and whether the proposal involves continuous shifts or replacing another group during its rest. We can help organise the administrative preparation, assemble the relevant information and coordinate follow-up in French. The scope and quotation reflect the employers, sites and procedures involved, with any specialist advice or agreement work identified before the assignment is agreed.
You do not need to have chosen the procedure or assembled a complete file before the first conversation.
Discuss your French assignment and staffing schedule with ALTALEO.
