Planning a Technical Shutdown in France: Turn the Site Window into a Workable Team Schedule

Your French customer has stopped production from Friday evening to Monday morning. The machinery is accessible, the installation team can travel and the contract gives you the weekend to finish. Before confirming the workforce, distinguish the time during which the site is available from the time each employee may actually work.

A shutdown can combine Sunday work, nights, long shifts and hours already accumulated on earlier projects. Those questions may require different provisions, consultations or decisions. A completed SIPSI declaration or one working-time authorisation does not settle the entire programme. The useful outcome is a schedule the employer can support, with a realistic alternative if the first proposal cannot be used.

This guide concerns adult employees under the general private-sector rules and is intended in particular for foreign employers posting technicians to France. Special occupational regimes require separate assessment. French posting protections include working time, compensatory rest and public holidays under L.1262-4.

Agree what the customer needs, not just when the gates are open

Establish which operations need the equipment stopped, which can be prepared beforehand and which require the same technicians to remain involved. Separate essential maintenance, installation of additional capacity, testing and the production restart. An agreement to provide access throughout the weekend does not establish that every task must be done on Sunday or at night.

Clarify whether the customer needs continuous attendance or defined work periods. A plan with unattended intervals and genuine breaks cannot be sold as uninterrupted coverage. Identify the technical dependencies and handover requirements before converting the access window into shifts.

The contractor remains responsible for establishing the basis applicable to its employees. The customer’s own shift agreement or authority to operate on Sundays is relevant background, not automatic proof that the contractor’s proposed workforce is covered.

Start with an explicit proposal that can be challenged

Consider this fictitious illustration, not an approved rota. An ordinary weekend near Lyon runs from Friday 18:00 to Monday 06:00, with no public holiday or clock change. That is a 60-hour access window. The proposed work can pause between specified operations; no continuous coverage is promised.

Initially, one crew of two technicians is allocated the following shifts. Assume the employees are subject to the night-worker rules. All times are local, breaks are genuinely free of work, and the table excludes any additional travel duties, briefing or call-outs that would need separate classification and recording.

Each technician would work 33 hours, giving 66 person-hours for the two-person crew. There are 12 hours between successive shifts. Neither figure establishes that the proposal is permissible.

For night workers, the ordinary daily maximum is eight hours under L.3122-6. Each proposed shift exceeds that by three hours and also raises the separate ordinary ten-hour daily limit under L.3121-18. The relevant bases must be established; one should not simply be substituted for the other.

Where the night-worker daily exceedance provisions apply, R.3122-3 requires equivalent compensatory rest as soon as possible after the working period. The 12-hour gaps do not, by themselves, show how the three compensatory hours are provided alongside daily rest and other entitlements. The rest plan needs examination with the applicable provisions and decision.

Compare an alternative before committing to the longer shifts

Suppose the tasks can be handed between two equally qualified crews, A and B, each containing two different technicians. The same planned work periods are divided into shorter shifts:

Each technician now has three shifts totalling 16 hours 30 minutes, with 18 hours between their successive shifts. Four technicians provide the same 66 person-hours. Each six-hour presence period contains three hours of work, a 30-minute break and another two hours 30 minutes of work.

This reduces the daily-hours pressure; it does not authorise Sunday or night work. Nor do equal person-hours guarantee equal output. The customer must accept the sequence, pauses and handovers, and the replacement technicians must have the necessary skills and their own working-time records checked. Any briefing or overlap must fit within recorded work; it is not invisible time outside the table.

Across the 60-hour window, both proposals contain 33 hours with a crew actually working, three hours of breaks and 24 hours with no crew scheduled. The alternative uses more people, not round-the-clock attendance. More travel and accommodation may be needed, while the need for particular daily extensions may change. Compare that cost with the feasibility of the first proposal before setting the commercial price.

Check the calendar week, not the length of the shutdown

For this illustration, use a week from Monday 00:00 to Sunday 24:00, the default in L.3121-35, subject to the relevant collective provisions.

The initial proposal contributes 28 hours per technician before Sunday midnight and five hours on Monday. It does not create a 60-hour working week merely because site access lasts 60 hours. Conversely, earlier work in the same week must be added before comparing the total with the applicable maximum.

In the alternative, each A technician contributes 16 hours 30 minutes to the first week. Each B technician contributes 11 hours to that week and five hours 30 minutes to the next. Those are assignment contributions, not complete weekly records. If other duties or earlier work change the totals, recalculate them.

The general maximum in a single week and the rolling average are separate controls. Night workers normally have a 40-hour average over 12 consecutive weeks, with the conditional agreement route up to 44 hours; the general average rules are different. A low total for this shutdown does not settle either employee history. L.3122-7, L.3122-18 and L.3121-22.

Do not reset a record because a new SIPSI declaration is filed or enter zero for every earlier week outside France. Establish the treatment of foreign work, absences and changes in status for the actual situation. The guide to the separate 48–60-hour weekly authorisation addresses a week that really needs an exceptional extension.

Separate the decisions that still affect the revised schedule

Sunday and location. Both proposals include Sunday work. Identify the appropriate activity-based, collective or administrative basis for the contractor’s tasks. A prefectural route under L.3132-20 has its own conditions; it is not required for every Sunday intervention. The Sunday-work guide explains the main distinctions.

The Lyon illustration should not be copied unchanged to Moselle, Bas-Rhin or Haut-Rhin. Their local framework matters. For example, L.3134-5 contains a maintenance exception tied to the necessity of the work and its inability to be performed on a working day, with further obligations. A new installation does not become maintenance because both occur during the same shutdown. Check the exact site, tasks and adjacent holidays early.

Night organisation and daily hours. Shortening the shifts does not establish the right to organise night work. Check the applicable agreement or the procedure relevant to the employer, and the employees’ status. The grounds for an exceptional night-worker daily extension in R.3122-1 cannot be inferred from an ordinary planned shutdown deadline. Use the night-work preparation guide for the prior organisation question.

Rest and breaks. Daily rest is normally 11 consecutive hours; weekly rest normally combines 24 consecutive hours with daily rest. The intervals inside either table do not establish the weekly rest before or after the mission. Examine those surrounding periods and any compensation separately. L.3131-1 and L.3132-2.

Breaks must be real. L.3121-16 provides the ordinary minimum of 20 consecutive minutes when daily work reaches six hours. If a technician monitors equipment during a nominal pause, its classification may change under L.3121-1, and the work and rest calculations must follow the facts.

Adding a second crew does not automatically create a statutory relief team. L.3132-16 defines a specific replacement organisation during another group’s rest days. Ordinary shift handovers should not be relabelled to claim its special rules.

Prepare in the order that avoids redesigning the file

First, establish the exact employer, sites, tasks and customer dependencies. Then prepare named individual schedules and the relevant history, with the facts behind any claimed exceptional need. Compare the alternatives before selecting the agreement or application route for each outstanding question.

The useful starting documents are the customer’s shutdown specification, site addresses, task sequence, workforce and skill requirements, proposed shifts and genuine breaks, relevant working-time records, applicable agreement extracts and any existing decisions. Add the consultation records and grounds required by the route selected. These documents let the employer identify what can be supported and what still needs to change.

Use one coherent project file, but keep each legal basis, applicant, recipient and decision scope identifiable. The employer’s required consultations are not replaced by the customer’s internal approval. Record who signs, what information is missing and which version of the schedule accompanies each request.

Build the calendar from the actual procedures selected. For example, R.3122-9 provides 30 days from receipt for its night-post application, while R.3121-8, as amended from 16 August 2026, specifies 30 days for the weekly requests it names. These are not a single 30-day shutdown approval, and other requests have different rules. Preparation, consultation and completeness come into the timeline as well.

Retain the fallback schedule and a decision point before travel and customer commitments become irreversible. A receipt or unanswered email is not, alone, evidence that every requested arrangement is authorised. During delivery, keep actual hours, breaks, changes and correspondence; an overrun requires a new assessment, not an assumption that the original permission stretches with it.

Discuss the shutdown while the programme can still change

Tell ALTALEO where the shutdown will take place, what must be completed and the proposed access window. We can help organise the administrative preparation, assemble the timetable and supporting information, and coordinate follow-up in French. The scope and quotation depend on the employers, sites, procedures and changes involved, with any specialist legal assessment identified before the assignment is agreed.

You do not need a complete application pack for the first conversation. The next useful step may be to clarify the customer’s actual coverage need, revise the crew pattern or prepare a defined request.

Discuss your French shutdown and request tailored assistance from ALTALEO.