Employer’s Representative in France

The system of posting employees in France concerns companies not established in France that wish to send one or more of its employees to provide a service in France.

Our employer representation service in France

ALTALEO provides companies posting employees in France with the complete infrastructure of its multilingual business centre, which guarantees availability every working day of the year and the necessary reactivity to respond to supervisory authorities. Our meeting rooms are also available for on-site document inspections. We also provide you with our experience and our network of accounting and legal advisors to enable you to comply with all French legal provisions during your posting in France.

What is the role of the employer representative?

Any employer who posts employees to France must appoint a representative on the national territory, whose role is to liaise with the control services: the labour inspectorate, the police and gendarmerie services, taxes and customs and keep the documents at the disposal of the labour inspectorate. The representative must be able to respond to requests from the inspection services.

Within what time limit and in what form must the representative respond to the inspection services?

He must be able to present or communicate without delay the documents requested by the control services. These documents must exist before the request for disclosure and not be drawn up for the sole purpose of being disclosed in the event of a request to the inspection services. The transmission of documents in dematerialised form in a commonly used format (such as.pdf) is possible.

Cases of posting

The employer must be regularly established in the State of origin and must actually carry out substantial activities there other than those relating solely to internal and/or administrative management.
The posting regime applies in the following cases:

• The execution of a service contract ;
• Intra-company or intra-group mobility (transnational non-profit labour lending) ;
• The execution of a secondment contract between a foreign temporary employment agency (ETT) and a user company in France ;

NB: Since 7 September 2018, the date of entry into force of Law No. 2018-771 of 5 September 2018 on the « freedom to choose one’s professional future », the posting of employees on the employer’s own account is now exempt from the formalities of registration.

The formalities to be respected

Before the secondment: mandatory prior formalities

1- The prior declaration of posting to the labour inspectorate on the portal SIPSI
Before starting work in France, the company must send a prior declaration of posting to the labour inspectorate of the place where the service is to be provided. Find all the useful information HERE.
2- The representative in France
The company must designate a representative present on French soil for the duration of the posting. The following  information will be asked in the SIPSI form, in the case of that the representation is performed by a professional mandated for that purpose (which is obligatory in the transport sector), located in France. In case you choose our services, these are the information to use in the SIPSI form, after having signed a representation mandate with us:

• SIRET number of the representative (company unique identification number): 52999572200020
• Corporate Name: EUROBC SAS
• Postal address in France : 31 avenue Saint-Rémy, 57600 Forbach
• Phone number : 03 72 88 09 00
• Email: representant@altaleo.com

This representative of the company posting employees in France is responsible, throughout the period of posting, for liaising with the control officers and making available to them certain documents that he or she can provide in paper or electronic format.
For construction activities in the construction sector, a professional identification card is mandatory for employees and temporary workers on secondment.
To find out more and apply for a card for your employees: https://www.cartebtp.fr

During the posting: the rights guaranteed to the employee

You are an employer and you comply with the conditions of posting set out above, you will be subject to the provisions of the French Labour Code and the applicable collective agreements of companies (of the same branch of activity and established in France), in the following matters:

• Individual and collective freedoms ;
• Discrimination and professional equality between women and men ;
• Maternity Protection ;
• Exercise of the right to strike ;
• Duration of work, public holidays, paid annual leave, family leave ;
• Minimum wage; including overtime increases ;
• Work health and safety, age of admission to work, prohibition of employment of children ;
• Conditions for liability to holiday and weather funds ;
• Illegal work (the provisions of the Labour Code against illegal work will apply to you, as well as to companies established in France)
• If you are a foreign temporary employment agency, you will be subject to additional obligations (conditions of availability, financial guarantee)

The minimum wage in France

At a minimum, the posted employee must receive the minimum wage provided for by the Labour Code for his temporary activity in France. Therefore, the base salary must be calculated on the basis of the gross amount of the SMIC.

The amount of the gross hourly minimum wage has been set, since 1^er January 2021, at €10.25, i.e. €1554.58 gross monthly on the basis of the legal 35-hour working week.

If your sector of activity is covered by an extended national or local collective agreement, you must apply its provisions for the employees you are posting.

To prove compliance with the legal or contractual minimum wage, the employer must produce

• a pay slip for a secondment of one month or more) ;
• an equivalent document proving payment for a posting of less than one month.

Amounts paid to cover the costs incurred by the posting , such as travel, accommodation and food expenses, cannot be taken into account in calculating the minimum wage and cannot be charged to the posted employee.

Hours of work

In France, the legal working time is 35 hours per week from Monday 0:00 to Sunday 24:00.

Hours worked in excess of this amount must, except in the case of special contractual provisions, give rise to an increase of:

• 25% for hours worked between the 36th and 43rd hour of work ;
• 50% for hours worked from the 44th hour.

The seconded employee must have a daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours and a weekly rest period of 35 hours per week including Sunday.

The maximum working time is, unless otherwise agreed, 48 hours per week from Monday 0:00 to Sunday 24:00 and 10 hours per day.

In respect of his work in France, the posted employee is entitled to a leave of 2.5 working days per month of effective work with the same employer. For a period of employment of less than one month, the right to leave shall be pro rata.

Occupational health and safety

As an employer providing a service in France, you are responsible for the protection of the health and safety of your employees seconded for this assignment under the French Labour Code.

You must therefore implement preventive measures adapted to the risks to which employees may be exposed.
Examples: work at height, site coordination, exposure to asbestos, noise, rules for the use and inspection of equipment, such as scaffolding or lifting equipment, etc.

In the event of a work accident, a declaration must be sent to the Labour Inspectorate within 48 hours.

The rules presented in this summary only concern the definitions, conditions and formalities of posting provided for by labour legislation. Indeed, other rules and formalities exist, in particular in the legislation applicable to the social security of the posted employee. For more information, go to the CLEISS website.