IIt will have been necessary to wait between the two rounds of the legislative elections to be informed of the European condemnation of the scale of compensation for unjustified dismissal, known as the “Macron scale”, one of the symbols of Emmanuel’s social policy. Macron. Symbol, even obsession, since the current president, then Minister of the Economy, had adopted in 2015 a first scale system quite similar, but then censored by the Constitutional Council.
This is therefore the second time that such an instrument, aimed at facilitating dismissals by setting a predictable price for the unlawful termination of the employment contract, has been called into question, but this time because of its contradiction with European labor standards. .
In this respect, the situation is somewhat surprising. While the social chamber of the Court of Cassation ruled, on May 11, with great publicity, that the Macron scale complied with international labor law, the European Committee of Social Rightsa Council of Europe institution responsible for ensuring the correct application of the European Social Charterconsiders on the contrary that this same scale violates thesection 24 of the charter. The decision of March 23 is not yet public (it will be in a few weeks) but we were able to learn about it.
Unanimity
The conclusion is without appeal. Seized by two trade unions, the CGT and FO, of the compatibility of the Macron scale with the said charter, the European Committee of Social Rights considers unanimously that the French system does not allow the judge to allocate adequate compensation or to decide other appropriate reparation to an unjustly dismissed employee, a right guaranteed by the aforementioned article 24, insofar as “the ceilings provided for by [le] labor code are not high enough to repair the damage suffered by the victim and be dissuasive for the employer”.
He adds that “the judge has only a narrow margin of maneuver in the examination of the individual circumstances of the unjustified dismissals. For this reason, the actual damage suffered by the employee in question, linked to the individual circumstances of the case, can be neglected and, therefore, not be repaired.. Such a conclusion is not a surprise, the committee having rendered two similar decisions concerning comparable scale systems in Finland or Italy.
However, it must be admitted, the committee’s decision does not directly contradict the French Court of Cassation, and for good reason! The latter admittedly judged that the scale was compatible with international standards, but by referring only to the Convention No. 158 of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
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