Employment contract in France: the clauses to check before signing

You have accepted an offer, and the contract arrives by email with a request to sign quickly. Now is the time to read it properly: once signed, every clause binds you, and anything not discussed beforehand is hard to renegotiate. There is no standard contract, but the same points always come up. This guide goes through them in the order you will find them, flags the clauses that weigh on you for a long time and says what can still be negotiated.

In writing or not, and when

A fixed-term contract must be in writing, with its reason, and handed to you no later than 2 working days after hiring; a part-time contract must be written too. A full-time permanent contract can remain oral, but the employer must give you the main information in writing no later than 7 calendar days after hiring (the parties' identity, workplace, job, start date, probation, pay, working hours), then the rest no later than 1 month after hiring (training, paid holiday, the procedure for ending the contract, collective agreements, social protection schemes). A written contract is drawn up in French, and you keep a signed copy.

What to check, line by line

1. The job and the grade. The title and duties, then the category (employee, technician, cadre), the level and the coefficient in your collective agreement: that is what sets your minimum pay under the agreement, often above the SMIC. A grade lower than the real job costs you dearly over the years.
2. Pay. The gross salary, how it is paid (the number of instalments a year, see the example below), bonuses and variable pay detailed separately, how overtime is paid. A “fixed plus variable” deal with no written calculation rule is hard to enforce: the guide on bonuses and variable pay says what to insist on.
3. Working time. The legal working week is 35 hours; beyond that, hours are overtime, paid or compensated. A days-based deal requires a collective agreement, which sets the number of days (at most 218 a year), and your signature on an individual written agreement; for part-time work, the schedule of hours must be in the contract.
4. Workplace and remote work. The address, and the remote-working rule if you were promised one: a verbal agreement at interview carries little weight if it is not written down anywhere.
5. Probation. It only exists if it is written, and so does its renewal: that needs a sector agreement allowing it, a clause in the contract and your written consent during the probation period. The maximum lengths by category are in the guide on the probation period.
6. Notice and the collective agreement. The contract often refers to the collective agreement for notice: ask which one, and read the guide on the notice period to know what leaving would involve.
7. Health cover and provident cover. The employer must give every employee collective health insurance and pay at least 50% of it; the rest is deducted from your pay, which lowers your net a little. If the company has a provident scheme, it must give you the notice describing its cover.

The same salary, paid differently

A contract stating €36,000 gross a year does not tell the whole story: depending on the number of instalments, what arrives each month changes. The site's engine, for a full-time permanent non-cadre job:

Calculation: modele-social publicodes engine, before tax, standard company health cover. The yearly total does not change; what changes is what you receive in ordinary months. The guides on the thirteenth month and on reading a job ad cover these traps in detail.

The clauses that bind you for a long time

• Non-compete. It bars you, after you leave, from working for a competitor or setting up a competing business. To be valid, it must be limited in time and space, target a specific activity, protect a legitimate interest of the company and include financial compensation, paid after the contract ends. Token compensation counts as none. Also check whether the employer can waive it, and within what time.
• Mobility. It allows you to be transferred within a geographical area that must be defined precisely at signature; the employer cannot extend it later without your consent. It only applies within the company: a clause that covers other companies in the group cannot make you move to them.
• Exclusivity. It forbids any other professional activity. It must be essential to protecting the company's interests and justified by your duties, and it cannot be imposed on a part-time employee. It is suspended for a while if you set up or take over a business.
• Training repayment (dédit-formation). You undertake to stay for a while after training paid for by the employer, or else repay part of it. It is only valid for training that costs more than the law or the collective agreement already requires the employer to fund; it must be signed before the training, state its date, nature, length and real cost, and remain proportionate. It does not apply on dismissal or mutual termination, and never to the salary paid during the training.
• Targets. Targets set “each year by management” with no criteria or deadline leave your variable pay at the employer's discretion. Ask for them to be measurable, communicated in advance, and for variable pay to be pro-rated if you leave.

What can still be negotiated

Until you have signed, almost everything is open: pay and the variable formula, the start date, remote work, a shorter probation period or one without renewal, the scope and compensation of a non-compete, the area of a mobility clause, recognition of past service, equipment. Compare the contract line by line with the offer and what was said at interview; if another employer makes you an offer, the job offer comparison brings both down to the same monthly net. How to ask for more without putting people off is in negotiating a job offer, and the CV analysis gives you your market value as leverage.

Getting your contract read

You can attach your contract to Nego as a PDF, a Word file or a photo: it reads it as a document, never as instructions, spots the sensitive clauses, quotes the rule and its official source, and tells you what to ask for. When a lot is at stake (a broad non-compete, a dispute already under way), individual advice is still better: a union, an employment lawyer or the labour inspectorate's information service.